Are you even in the UK if you haven’t said this yet since September? Along with not knowing where to start, one of the biggest barriers to a fitness routine is it stopping and starting due to life, the universe, and colds. Whilst I’m not a doctor and this shouldn’t replace formal medical advice, I can give you some great tips on how to get back to training following a non-serious illness.
When not to train
If you can’t get out of bed, it’s a really good sign that you shouldn’t be exercising, and should instead be resting. If you’re less seriously ill and still feel capable of being up and about, things get a little less easy to decide upon. A great basic rule is that if you’ve got no symptoms below the neck, you can still train. However, there will always be exceptions. If you want to exercise and feel like you can, proceed… with caution
Adapting exercise after illness
If you’ve had a cold and are looking to get back to the gym once your nose has stopped streaming, here’s the inside info to help. Fitness types love an acronym, and one of the most helpful ones relates to how we set a schedule. We use FITT: frequency (of sessions), intensity (same same), time (which means duration of session here) and type (of exercise). These are also ways of determining the difficulty of a session, or the aim of it.
When it comes to either recovery, or just general progress, the element of FITT that we increase last is intensity. Only once we’ve nailed our technique in terms of the frequency, time and type do we up the intensity in order to make it more challenging.
So it stands to reason that the first thing to dial back on if you need to go a little easier is… intensity. Therefore, when returning after a break (it may even have been an extended holiday or rest period – lucky you!), the thing to lower is the intensity of your sessions. Where you might normally be looking to make a six, seven or eight out of 10 in terms of effort, instead be happy with a five.
Getting back in the gym
As a guideline, here’s what to try, assuming that you ordinarily complete three sessions per week, each lasting between 45 minutes and an hour: set aside time for three sessions in the week, and accept that you may spend less time actually working, but allow plenty of time as you may need to rest more between sets.
Complete a short cardio-based warm up, but aim for this to be on an upright bike or a treadmill at a walk (maybe a jog); items such as a spin bike, assault bike, cross trainer or rower are higher intensity automatically, so leave them alone for now. Use the warm up to get to a point where you feel that you’re a five to six out of 10 in terms of effort, and remember that you might hit this level earlier than you normally would as you’re recovering.
Cut back on the main part of your session
Once you’re warmed up, prepare to do about 80% of the work you usually do at about 75% of your normal intensity. This may look like decreasing simply the weight you lift, and it might also involve lowering the amount of reps you do, AND the number of sets. Remember what I said previously about also extending your rest breaks – where you’d normally take 60 to 120 seconds between sets, make it more like 90 to 150.
Other options are to choose exercises which involve less of your body’s energy: lots of lower body exercises – particularly compound movements (those involving more than one set of joints), and those performed standing up – are quite draining, because they aim to use several large muscles in one go. It’s why they’re effective for fat loss and muscle gain… but it also means they’re draining. You can either leave these exercises out altogether, just do one (and do it straight away), or choose seated versions (such as the leg press machine, seated calf raise, or leg extension) instead of standing. Lots of upper body exercises can be performed seated anyway, so these will help you to feel a sense of accomplishment, whilst also remaining in a safer position.
My go-to in this situation would be to aim for six exercises – two lower body, three upper body, and one core, plus to do pelvic floor exercises…
Pelvic floor and breathing
If you know how to do them well, pelvic floor exercises are great for a rehab routine, as they can be done at a low intensity, and will help you to breathe highly effectively. At the same time, they will give you some muscular training, so again you are getting back to your fitness workload whilst staying safe. They can also just help you to feel better!
These are great to cool down with at the end of a session, and it’s a good idea to follow this up with a gentle treadmill walk, or a short go on a recumbent bike to ease your body back to a resting mode.
Next steps
After a week, see how you feel – are you sleeping well? Have you continued to feel better in yourself? How is your energy level?
If things are improving, start to kick up another notch and continue as you feel is right with your training. If you haven’t improved, stick at the advice for another week. If you’ve got worse, it may well be time to see a doctor, and if things continue to stay the same or get worse, it’s definitely time to seek medical advice.