Do you skip your workout when you're feeling under the weather? Studies performed by Ball State University suggest that it may be best to keep up the pace, even if you have a cold.
Dr. Kaminsky and his colleagues infected volunteers with a rhinovirus. ... the subjects were 34 young men and women who were randomly assigned to a group that would exercise with their colds and 16 others who were assigned to rest. The group that exercised ran on treadmills for 40 minutes every other day at moderate levels of 70 percent of their maximum heart rates.
Every 12 hours, all the subjects in the study completed questionnaires about their symptoms and physical activity. The researchers collected the subjects’ used facial tissues, weighing them to assess their cold symptoms.
The investigators found no difference in symptoms between the group that exercised and the one that rested. And there was no difference in the time it took to recover from the colds. But when the exercisers assessed their symptoms, Dr. Kaminsky said, “people said they felt O.K. and, in some cases, they actually felt better.”
Now, Dr. Kaminsky said, he and others at Ball State encourage people to exercise when they have colds, at least if they have the type producing symptoms like runny noses and sneezing. He is more cautious about other types of colds that produce fevers or symptoms below the neck such as chest congestion.
Dr. Kaminsky also runs a fitness program at the university, dealing with regular exercisers. When he tells them it is all right to exercise when they have a cold, many are “a little suspicious,” he said. Often, they want to back off a little, lowering the intensity of their efforts.
“We tell them that’s O.K. if it’s for a short period of time,” Dr. Kaminsky said. “But what you have to be cautious of, where I see it as more of an issue, is with people who are trying to build that exercise habit. They’ve got all these barriers anyway.”
AND too often taking time off because of a cold is the start of falling away from the program entirely.
Dr. Kaminsky, who runs and works out on elliptical cross trainers and does resistance training, takes the studies’ findings to heart. Now when he has a cold, he continues to work out.
Read the full article from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/health/nutrition/25best.html?ref=fitnessandnutrit