A question that I see come up often, in any kind of forum linked to fitness, is, if you should work out despite feeling sore or if you can still work out despite having a cold or the flue.
I am now talking about my current experience with DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). After having Visitors, getting the flue, Christmas happening with all its traditions and then getting the flue again, I was finally ready to get back to my Work-outs and eating habits. Naturally it has been a while now since my last workout and I was prepared for the normal muscles soreness.
Eager to get back in shape I probably pushed it harder then I did ever before, had better form to start with and ended up more sore then ever. Normally I am only sore to the point of annoying pain and keeping to push through with additional work outs does relief the pain and as a matter of fact, help stretch the muscles and working out the soreness. However this time, the pain in my arms and legs is so bad to the point that I can hardly walk nor move my arms without sharp pain. That means if I would push through now without giving my muscles time to recover, the danger of pulling or hurting my muscles more then just the minor tears you get from normal workouts, would be quite big.
That means you need to judge for yourself if you just feel slight discomfort or if the pain is sharp and to the point you feel like taking pain killers. As mentioned, working through sore muscles is a good thing as long as the pain is not too much and you can still go on about your day normally without feeling like 10 years have been added to whatever age you might currently be.
On the topic of if you should work out through a cold or flue: It’s important to note that if you follow a very strenuous workout, your body needs time to recover and rebuild itself between workout sessions. The shorter the time in between your sessions is, the more important it is to use that time to its fullest.
While under the influence of a cold or flue your body will need a lot of energy to fight off the infection. This energy is normally needed to rebuild your muscles and recover.
In this case it’s more important for you and your body to use that energy to fight off the infection and properly recuperate. Taking a short break is the better option in this case. Otherwise you are just risking injury and over-training symptoms.
On other, exciting news, I was told that I am in the official p90X infomercial for 2011. I haven’t seen it yet and it’s most probably just a short snippet but I look forward to seeing it 🙂
Also, I just recently got Zumba for Kinect and will write a little review of what I think about it in one of the next updates.
Tags: Cold, DOMS, flue, Infomercial, Kinect, MS, P90X, Soreness, Zumba