Do you excercise while being sick???

[vonkaeferchen]

Hello -
The question I have : do you exercise while you have sore throat? Or strep throat? No temperature, just cough...
In Russia I would stay away from exercising till I recover + another 2 week after just to make sure the thing will not return or will not lead to any complications.
Here I often see in Gym kids taking competitive team gymnastics classes while coughing a lot!
Is it the way to go? Just ignore the cough and exercise?

[lordmage]

two schools of thought.

1. there is such a thing called exercise addiction which is what they would do.
Which includes when sick you could put your body thru more paces and maybe get better.

i know when i fell sick not actually sick i go to the gym and after half the routine i fell better.

2. is that when sick you should rest and recover rather then over execrt yourself.

[almeeker]

I have allergies, so I cough, sneeze and wheeze all the time. So yes I exercise when I have any of the above. I might be more inclined to skip a workout if I feel like I might vomit or have a nasty head cold. On the flip side I wouldn't skip an additional 2 weeks after I've recovered, I get my butt back to the gym asap. I don't know about the rest of you, but I actually hurt if I don't get to the gym at least 2x/week.

[cjohnson728]

I've always heard the conventional wisdom is that if symtoms are above the neck (such as a sniffly nose), it's okay to exercise; if they're below the neck (chest congestion, nausea), then hold off.

The best thing is to listen to your body. I also can't imagine two weeks off after healing up; that seems like a long time...and I believe that exercise gets so many chemicals going for you that it will speed up your body's return to normal. As long as you are getting enough rest, you should be okay.