29 Training while sick (colds and flu)

Hello and welcome to the High Performance Physiology podcast. I'm Chris Beardsley. I'm here with my co-host Rob Nasseri. I'm going to talk about training while sick today. Now you probably can hear from my voice that I am in fact sick. I had flu this week. There were days when I was extremely miserable. This is actually a lot better. I feel very much more myself. The voice still is a little bit raspy, but there we go. We're going to talk about training while sick. I'm just going to do a very very quick comment at the beginning. I'm not going to go into huge amounts of detail about immune system functioning and how it relates to strength. I'll make a couple of brief comments and then we'll jump into some practical suggestions. First of all, obviously while we are sick, we obviously have our immune systems are dealing with that problem. The immune system is also involved in the post worker recovery process. There's an inflammatory response in the post worker period that is involved in doing all of the muscle damage repair that we experience. Obviously, you would expect that if the immune system is already dealing with a sickness like my flu, then it might not necessarily have the capacity to do its normal repair process as quickly. You might expect that to be a slowdown in post worker recovery. I actually haven't seen very much work on that in the strength training context. If anybody has seen anything like that, then please let me know. The other thing to mention obviously is that if the sickness is perceived by the person as a stressful, then that would then create a stress-related slowdown in post worker recovery as well. That would then be something that would be taken to account. Obviously, in my case, the flu isn't really unpredictable or uncontrollable. I'm not particularly worried about it, so I don't think I'm perceiving it as a stressor. That just gives me the opportunity to make the point that ultimately the old idea that training and exercise itself is a stressor is not really valid. The stress research is a huge area of psychology, and they've made it very clear that for a stressor to count as a stressor, it has to be unpredictable and uncontrollable, and that doesn't really fit the definition of 99.9% of strength training workouts, or even athletic training workouts, or even sporting situations that we're likely to find ourselves in. Yes, there are still SNC coaches walking around saying that training is a stressor. Sorry, they're wrong. You can't really do that. It's not valid. Yes, it used to be very popular. No, it's not correct. Ultimately, as I say, in my case, I don't really think it is counting as a stressor, but for sicknesses that are genuinely behaving in an unpredictable and uncontrollable way. We perhaps don't know whether it's going to be dealt with and over in space for a week or two. That could potentially create a problem that would have to face the stressor concept as well. Stress, as I say, has negative effects on post-historic recovery, and arguably forget severe enough, it's actually going to create a muscle-iatrophy effect on its own, but that would be a very severe stressor, I think, for that to be the case. Cool. Very brief comments, not really saying very much more. Obviously, everyone listening to this has probably been sick at some point in their life, so they know what it feels like. The question then is, how are we going to structure our strength training workouts, or how are we going to change our strength training workouts in order to take into account that sickness being present? I'm just going to throw things over to Rob, so I don't have to talk quite so much today and ask him, I guess, firstly, or the two questions that are rolling around in my mind at the moment, because I think it'd be really interesting to ask Rob these questions separately. The first is how he changes his own training when he gets sick, I has flu or whatever, and secondly, what he's suggesting to clients, because I think those are probably going to be very slightly different. So, Rob, which one do you want to start with? Yeah, we can go over my own first, because it's very easy. Okay, cool, let's do that. Yeah. I mean, obviously, compared to my clients, a lot of my gen pop clients, especially, I'm much more dedicated to lifting the strength training, so I don't like to miss much. Typically, I'm training three to four times a week, and really, if I'm sick and really feeling under the weather, the first thing I do is probably back off a little bit of sets for each workout from each exercise. So, if I'm doing like two sets per exercise, immediately just kind of back it down to one. A lot of times, currently, I do like a set of eight and set a six-ish, just knock off that second set. And then, typically, I'll keep a little bit more reps and reserve, usually, especially for hypertrophy stuff, pushing to like anywhere from zero to two RIR, usually around one, and then so if I'm really feeling pretty terrible, I'll do like two to three reps from reserve, just make sure I'm not really anywhere close to failure. Exercises like back squats and things like that that are a little bit more coordination demand. Chris and I were talking about before the podcast here. I kind of assume, if I'm feeling terrible, and Chris said the same thing, the like coordination and things like that aren't really improving. You know, I keep the exercise in, keep the loading heavy, keep it a little further from failure, just so I don't feel bad, you know, if I have a headache, I don't want to exacerbate it, things like that. And then again, just if I'm doing maybe like three sets of three to five or something like that on those typically, back it down to like one or two sets. So just kind of try to go like absolute rock bottom volume procession on everything. If I'm feeling really bad, maybe knock off, you know, knock it down to like two workouts in a week. So just kind of try to keep the minimum dose for hypertrophy as well through the week because really like, you know, if you're sick, you don't really want to take any steps backwards and it's super, super easy to just stay pretty much exactly where you're at. Not dig yourself into a whole recovery wise and then like that. So the following week you can just get right back on it. So yeah, just try to keep it simple. We don't change much at all. I don't like cardio anyway. So I'll use it as an excuse to not do any cardio. You know, just cut that out for the week and then go to wash. But yeah, so that's really what I tend to do myself. Yeah, I mean, I guess that that all sounds pretty logical. It's interesting just to pick up on a couple of the things that you mentioned there. So you've identified kind of, I mean, really, like we were saying before podcast, you know, a period of sickness where you kind of started to reduce how much you're doing is almost kind of sort of the same thing as a as a taper or a de-load between trainings because I mean, training wise, you can kind of treat it like that. So we have to look at what adaptions were likely to lose. I mean, obviously your kind of current focus is more on the kind of powerlifting side personally. You know, but ultimately, you know, you still keep, you know, your kind of high velocity capacities going. But those kind of adaptions underpin that aren't really things that you'd like to lose. So you could kind of just take those out if you're doing some jumps at the beginning of your workout. I do, I get lazy with those. Yeah, you can just tell me that because there's no kind of dissipation risk. Whereas the high purchasing side of things in the kind of what if we're talking about our model of what a strength training workout for athletes would look like with high velocity at the beginning, then heavy strength training, then plyometrics, and then finally super maximally sentrics. Really, the most at risk section is that sort of heavy strength training bit, which, you know, you give some very clear details on how to kind of bring that all the way down if people are doing three or four sessions, bring down two, you know, kind of drop the number of sets down to maybe one, even if it's really bad and leave a couple of reps and reserve. I mean, that gives you a really solid kind of map. But the high velocity stuff can just go. I mean, it's just like we don't need it. Similarly, people are doing exactly. People are doing isometrics from maximum kind of, sort of, promote you to a group of increases they could drop that. So that, yeah, I mean, that's that's really kind of, that's really kind of interesting. Okay, so in terms of your clients, where would you go with that? Yes, so for the heavy loading strength training end of things, basically all the same kind of recommendations, not going to offset one or more RIR heavy loads, which a lot of clients tend to think the opposite. They think I'm going to have them do things lighter. They say, you know, lighter and easier stuff like that. I'm not going to go lighter and up the reps because I'm going to make it harder to recover from. It'll feel worse, you know, if you're like sniffling, sneezing, headache, all those things, a lot of that sensations already. So definitely don't up the reps, keep them well, a little farther from failure. And then since I'm focusing on, you know, for myself, a lot of the power lifts at the moment, stuff like that, clients who don't care or need to improve those specifically. If they are on the program for the day, you know, I might switch it out to an exercise that's just more stable, easier, don't have to or Nene, they like that. If maybe a client typically squats, throw them on the leg press for the day, something like that. You know, overall, the exercise is large and then isn't super, super important. If it's an athlete, same as you just said, you can drop out the high velocity stuff, so I'll suggest that. Usually keep these centroids in, and they're already like a rock bottom volume anyway. So you don't wanna lose that 'cause it'll dissipate. So, so fast. So just keep, you know, one or two reps, twice a week kind of the usual, yeah, respiratory. That's a really good point. That's a really good point on the eccentric's actually because the volume is so low anyway. And also, most of the time, there's very little, once people have been doing them in the program for a couple of weeks, there shouldn't really be any kind of, there shouldn't be much of a sensation going on apart from the fact that you feel like you're kind of ripping your leg off. - Yeah. - I mean, there shouldn't really be any kind of cardiovascular, no, there shouldn't be any of the cardiovascular sensations. And then just kind of going back to the leg press idea. I think that's a really, really important point. And that actually connects with something that you said to me before we started about training older people, which we can kind of come back to in a minute. Which is actually, yeah, that leg press substitution for the squat on that day, for that person who isn't training to be a power lift. They just got the squat in the program because it's a good low-body exercise for the quad doctors, dudes, whatever. That leg press is a really, really, really interesting substitution. And I would probably even go on step further and make it a single leg variation. Because again, you really taking those kind of sort of cardiovascular sensations out. I mean, it's, I just think the single leg leg press is just such a good exercise in that context. It's like, it doesn't create that really uncomfortable feeling of, you know, the cardiovascular system kind of getting involved. - I said you did it. - No, it, it, it, it, and it is a great exercise. - How did you do those? Like, you might have to squat 'cause I like squatting. I just take it right out and single leg leg press all day. - Absolutely. And I've said before on a number of podcasts and one of the reasons I really, really, really like that exercise is because it gives me more options in a commercial gym. Because most of the time, I can use a selectorized, I mean, okay, fine, I might be right down at the bottom end of the stack, but I'm able to use a selectorized leg press machine. I don't have to go and start stealing all the 45 pound plates in the gym. - Yeah. - You know, to load at the 45 degree leg press. You know, there's the, there's a selectorized option which is available, which I think is really good. So yeah, so big fan of the single leg press. And it's just really interesting to see you kind of doing that substitution in that context for that reason 'cause, again, trying to remove those discomforting feelings 'cause we've already got, we're walking into the gym with a whole load of discomforting feelings. So, and I guess just why I'm kind of on a flow here. You mentioned about the coordination issue, which I forgot to include in my introduction because my brain is just kind of not really functioning right now, but it's interesting to kind of add on then. Okay, fine. So if I'm uncomfortable, my brain is kind of foggy and I can't really concentrate, I'm not gonna make an equordination related improvement. So there's not a lot to point in trying to chase those adaptions, but similarly, if I'm feeling really, really miserable and comfortable, my brain is dealing with that sensation of feeling miserable and uncomfortable. I'm unlikely to get very much of a emotional improvement benefit either. So it's highly unlikely I'll trigger much of an adaption in that regard. So again, it really starts to take things out with the work outside. There's no point in doing brief isometrics for increasing the equipment 'cause that's not gonna happen. Any coordination related stuff, although I lost these stuff can go. And it really just then leaves us with the rest of it now. Plymetrics is not something we tend to kind of spend a lot of time talking about 'cause it's very, very specific application and I think it would probably, I would probably be cautious about the plyometrics, even though technically the adaptions will go, I'm not sure that given the focus is on the landing phase, I'm not sure many people are gonna want to produce high efforts upon landing. - I wouldn't be doing it for me, but I'm miserable. So I think that probably comes out, doesn't it? So we end up basically with just the two sections. - I don't really have, I mean, like you were kind of saying, I don't have a ton of clients doing like, plyometrics all year in that anyway. So a lot of the times it's just not a consideration. If they were doing it, I'd probably opt for dropping it out myself. - Yeah, yeah. - One of the first things I dropped out, if I'm ever doing it all in my own training 'cause I'm always doing like myself, like skateboarding and things, I don't really worry when I'm jumping off things kind of all day and there's sessions about doing more in the gym. Just not very important to me. - Sure, I'm just thinking now as I sit here feeling, you know, very sorry for myself for having a flu. The thought of actually having to do a plyometric where I'm focusing on, you know, kind of landing and rebounding off the round, it just doesn't fill me with joy. - I don't think that's something that I would want to do. Cool. So, okay, cool. So what we're saying then is that we're talking about reducing frequency, we're focusing on the things that need to, you know, kind of be protected. The adaptions need to be protected, which is by purge fee in the heavy strength training section. And obviously the e-centric relates to adaptions like psychomogeneousness is from the kind of super max for these e-centrics. Really no change on the super max for these e-centrics like as the volumes are really, really low. Anyway, we've said this before, but you know, we're literally talking about a couple of reps, you know, kind of a couple of times a week we're not talking about anything more than that. The old days when people were doing five sets of 12 Nordics are gone, hopefully. - Well. - You know, that is just crazy. There's absolutely no need for that. I've got some really nice data showing that you can get great results from super max for these e-centrics with much, much, much lower volumes than that. So, yeah, basically focusing on those two sections and really the main modification is stripping down of the heavy strength training section to minimal numbers of sets, probably single sets and maybe an extra rep or serve. And then as you said, if the frequency is high through four times a week, then we'd bring that probably down to, it's exactly what I've done this week. I just skipped a session, I normally do three, four body workouts. Week, I've just skipped a session and I'm just gonna go back tomorrow and it will basically, hopefully, and not really have been much of a difference for me. So, yeah, there we go. Just given that we've got time, I'm just going to kind of pick up on that point, you raised your motorway earlier, which is that ultimately many of the kind of programs that you, programs is probably the wrong word. Many of the modified kind of program sections that you create when somebody is sick and you say, okay, well, let's modify what you're doing and kind of adjust it. They end up kind of looking more like a program that you would write for an older person. - Yeah, really, really, really someone. - And I think that's a really, really cool observation. I mean, ultimately, I've been doing a little bit of work on constructing FAQs around the problems, challenges is probably a better way to phrase it. Challenges that older people face as they're training and really what it comes down to is the recovery issue. It's the recovery issue. I mean, ultimately, it just takes longer to recover from the exact same workout and there's some really, really nice animal data showing that you can literally create exactly the same amount of post-workout fatigue at the end of a workout. So, you do the workout in the older animals over younger animals and you get exactly the same reduction in post-workout strength is just that then, going back to baseline, just takes longer for the older animals. I mean, that's a really, really cool observation because what that tells you is it's not about the initial fatigue. We're not saying, oh yeah, older animals or older people get more fatigued. No, that's not what we're saying. The fatigue is the same. Post-workout fatigue is the same. It's just taking longer to go through that inflammatory process and get you back to baseline, which is pretty much what I said at the beginning of this podcast, which is that probably got an immune-related kind of slowdown and how long it takes you to recover. So, the reality is that analogy that you kind of raised, the idea of saying, you know, from modifying a program because somebody's sick, it's actually gonna end up looking like a program that I would write for an older person. I think it's a really, really cool observation. - Yeah, and I think like where people tend to go wrong with programming when they're sick and adjusting things, at least a lot of my clients will ask about it, is like adding recovery workouts. Like if they're currently doing cardio. - It's not a thing. There's not a thing as a recovery record. - On or like recovery workout with lifting and stretching. And I'm like, just do you have any normal stuff and then just go rest? Like the recovery run, quote unquote, is not recovering anything quicker. So, yeah. - That's crazy. - I mean, I mean, this idea, my physiologically, every single exercise that we do, every single battle exercise that we do, has a muscle-damaging effect. Now, it could be tiny. I mean, it could be really, really almost unnoticeable, if not unnoticeable. But it actually has an effect because every time we start activating muscle fibers, they are going to experience calcium ion accumulation and that is the starting process for every single post-workout of team mechanism. The idea that you could do a workout, [BLANK_AUDIO] And they all come back at you and go, "Well, blood flow." And I'm like, "Would you mean blood flow?" I mean, yeah, blood is flowing around your body all the time. You did it to get stopped because you, I mean, like, what planet are these people on? And I think it kind of is one of these, it's one of these kind of things where people have used the expression recovery workout so many times. And they think that because they use the expression recovery workout, because they put those two words together, recovery workout, that it automatically means that the workout is now hoping you recover. Oh, I said it was a recovery workout, therefore it must help me recover. I'm like, "No, you just made that up." - And like, even if you like mentally would ever feel a little better, like I'm not saying that's not the case. Like you might go to a quote unquote, recovery run like, "Sure, like you think you feel better." - Well, it doesn't mean that the size produces feel good hormone, I mean, that's the problem. I mean, I would recommend that people would just kind of have a walk in the fresh air if it's appropriate in their kind of, you know, climate. And I mean, obviously if it's like minus 20 outside, then don't do that, but, you know, anyway. So cool. I think that was obviously a very short episode, but hopefully it was useful to people. Is there anything else you wanted to mention before we finish today? - No, I think it's pretty easy. It's pretty straightforward when you say, just don't do white loads, do high raps, don't do recovery workouts. And then, you know, just kind of make all those changes and suggest that it will be well on your way to a decent week, the following week. So, yeah, then just don't stress it. - Yeah, absolutely. And of course, you know, of course, yeah, don't stress it. I mean, ask the thing. And of course, if the, like in my case, I was so much relaxed, you just skipped a session and that's totally fine, you know, anything. As we're making the assumption that, you know, training of some kind is possible for you in the snow. (laughs) I don't, I think probably I could have gone to the gym on the day that I decided to miss, but I don't think I would have been very popular. And I wouldn't have probably got very much out of it. So there we go. So obviously, there are scenarios in which, you know, training just isn't possible, but that is, you know, something you probably want to talk to your doctor about, not us. So there we go. Cool. Hopefully that was useful to people. We will be back next week with another episode.