Should You Train When You’re Sick

Should You Train When You’re Sick?

You wake up one morning, and you don’t feel very well. Maybe your sinuses are stuffed up, or perhaps you’ve got a little diarrhea.

You’ve scheduled some barbell training or a run for later that day, but you’re thinking about bagging the workout so you can just focus on recovering.

Is that the right call? Should you skip an exercise session when you’re feeling sick?

Short answer: no, you probably don’t need to skip your workout.

When You Should Definitely NOT Train

the only times you should skip a workout due to sickness is if you’re running a fever above 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit or you’re regularly vomiting or having diarrhea.

"According to sports medicine doctor Lewis G. Maharam, exercising with a fever can cause your already high internal body temperature to increase, which will only make you feel sicker."

Isolated bouts of vomiting or diarrhea by themselves typically aren’t reasons for skipping a workout, but if you’re doing it on the regular, then from a practical perspective you need to skip.“You don’t want to sh*t your pants or vomit on the floor while you’re working out.” You’d also be putting yourself at risk for dehydration. 

Another guideline out there about training while sick is the “neck rule.” If all your symptoms are above the neck (runny nose, headache, sneezing, etc.) go ahead and train. If your symptoms are below the neck (chest cold, body ache, fever), then skip.

Adjusting Your Training While You’re Sick


While you should train even if you’re sick, I recommends changing your workout a bit, so you don’t tax your body too much.

“Keep the intensity [weight you’re lifting] up, but decrease volume,” he says. You can maintain intensity and drop volume in a few different ways. For our example, let’s say you’re doing a barbell training program. One way to maintain intensity while dropping volume would be to lift the same weight you would normally, but do a rep scheme like 2×5 or 3×3 instead of doing 3×5.

Another way to maintain intensity and drop volume would be to keep the same weight and rep scheme on your main barbell lifts, but cut out the accessory work like chin-ups and dips.

Get well soon