I think the only determining factor in whether I train or not is whether I have a fever. If feverish, I simply feel too fatigued to properly train. I've never noticed a decrease in performance while training if only sick with other symptoms, which seems to align with what the study suggests.
My new training protocol when sick is simple. nothing more than zone 2 work. slow steady state cardio like a long brisk walk. just enough to keep the metabolism turning over but not enough to weaken you further while your body’s already fighting hard. Definitely no heavy resistance training or climbing.
What I found to work best for me is having 2-4 days of total rest (stretching is allowed) depending of the severity of the illness. When I start to feel a bit better but still feel ill, then I do some sport at moderate intensity and volume. I found that it almost magically get my body to start up again and I feel better in the following hours ! I get at least a full day of illness off
For the record I went plant-based (mostly whole-foods) quite a few years back and haven't been ill since, so it really depends on circumstance. I relate to getting a really mild symptom (throat/ear/headache) which never seems to develop into anything more. It's a godsend especially over winter-time!
The comments are interesting. For me personally, I always seemed to have less illness when I was doing focus training. Generally, I'm eating healthily during those times, so there is major confounding here. My main concern about a lot of publications, is regarding the study design and if they did a controlled trial with appropriate sample size. If they did not, did they assess and address study limitations (they should do this anyway......)? I always ask this question, when I read a paper. In this case, it sounds like this was clear and acknowledged it's limitations though. This is refreshing. It's amazing to me, how many peer reviewed publications do not do this. Or try to put the focus on it's findings/conclusions. But often a goal is to get citations, not just to do good science.
I had winter periods over the last couple of years when my son was continually bringing colds and viruses home every couple of weeks. I'd feel unwell maybe 50% (with varying severity) of the time. If I hadn't done any training during those times I'd have hardly done anything else. I continued with my normal programme but reduced the volume. I still made max strength progress with resistance exercises like benchpress, deadlifts, and fingerboarding. I found hard bouldering and sport climbing impossible to progress during these periods mainly due to fatigue. I also basically worked, trained and went home and rested, not much rushing about or socialising. I don't know whether the training prolonged my bouts of illness or made me more likely to get subsequent infections but anecdotally nearly all the parents I knew in the same area experienced a lot of colds.
Great video there Dave. Please stick with here, I’ve recently read, (fiction book) see below from “Para phasing” quotation from book. After a character had, had a severe heart attack & was critical ill in hospital, his wife said to their daughter “if he hadn’t got that virus years ago, it he had rest like the doctors said instead of rushing back to his high stressed work, to life, if he had looked after himself & his heart better would it even have happened?” Then I remembering what you said about ‘stepping back from training when you have cold or flu virus, to let your body deal with it, before pushing yourself again.” See where I come in here’s that I was a competitive; cyclist, road & MTB; runner road & fells, was a good standard rock climber (onsite E6 - 7 or up to F8a+) a hill walker, skier, always fit & active often stepping back when ill but sometimes trained through colds, injury over the last 40 years. Otherwise I lived a health, drink free, smoke free & vegetating life style. Although also have used a Heart Rate Monitor over the last 30 plus years & noted that your heart rate often showed a slowing increase &/or lag before an illness struck See I’m now recovering from dying from a massive heart attack, & having had triple bypass surgery and have learnt how important rest & recovery are to you heart, body & health. See these things have started me wondering if there was any research that might show a link with training through illness & heart issues that you were aware of! Even though one of my surgeons actually said at the time, that being so fit might have help stave off the heart attack until my mid 50’s. Therefore I was wondering, as you quoted a paper about colds & training, if you were aware of anything about the effects of training on the heart when ill or having a virus, Dave?
Dear Dave, would you be interested in making a video on, mabye even an experiment with creatine? It seems to me that climbing is one of the sports where it is used the most rarely, although especially newer evidence suggests it is quite a powerful supplement. Thank you, Niklas
Great little video. I personally think a walk is the minimum, at least get out and move a little, maybe some hang board, again at a minimum. Im also curious as to what had you eating a western diet? Was it the holidays or vacation? I personally was off the keto for the holidays and I too am a little under the weather, but I was still in the training room today.
Listened to two podcasts/videos today and twice heard someone say they switched to a more nutrient dense/ whole food diet and then almost never got sick again. And it's been the same for me. I always considered myself to have a weak immune system after I had glandular fever as a child. Would get sick 5 or 6 times a year.. then I really focused on eating more real food, vegetables, fruit and meat, massively cut down on alcohol and sugar, and I've been sick once (probably Covid) in a year and a half. An absolute miracle for me. I experience exactly the same thing as you in that I feel like I have a bit of a virus (normally coinciding with everyone around me getting sick) but it just doesn't develop into any real illness.
My own experience of years of low carb/keto and not getting colds then getting a cold when I periodically drop out of that pattern to a more carb orientated diet, typically at Christmas, closely mirrors yours, it’s very obvious.
Train however you want when sick but for the love of god do not go to the climbing gym sick or even under the weather. We really do not need to breath your germs.
I have an omnivore diet and I had abou ~7 years without ever catching a cold. I didn't change my diet. Did your diet influence this? This is correlation as you pointed out so let's not even suggest otherwise
If you feel like shit, how would you train anyway? It’s not like you can just ignore it when getting out of bed is already difficult. Not to mention that climbing with others while you have an infectious disease is very egoistic.
Not many common colds are that bad that getting out of bed is difficult, unless immunity is pretty poor. No-one said anything about climbing with others - that isn't necessary.
very interesting, and frustrarting to see gaps in knowledge that could be pretty widly applicable! I'm mostly a runner and pretty loose on how I train. With a relativly well managed asthma and family and work I do tend to push through these kind of things a bit with a bit of expecation managemnt on performance. My main risk is an experianced missed, but i do apprecate the thinking around long game impact. todays reckless is tomorrow's injury
I think the only determining factor in whether I train or not is whether I have a fever. If feverish, I simply feel too fatigued to properly train. I've never noticed a decrease in performance while training if only sick with other symptoms, which seems to align with what the study suggests.
My new training protocol when sick is simple. nothing more than zone 2 work. slow steady state cardio like a long brisk walk. just enough to keep the metabolism turning over but not enough to weaken you further while your body’s already fighting hard. Definitely no heavy resistance training or climbing.
Could you do a video on your diet, specifically what you eat, maybe some example meals. It's always something I struggle to get inspiration for
Oh please! I’m not into this or that diet… but because of underlying health issues even a cold nails me badly. Anything to keep them at bay!
What I found to work best for me is having 2-4 days of total rest (stretching is allowed) depending of the severity of the illness. When I start to feel a bit better but still feel ill, then I do some sport at moderate intensity and volume. I found that it almost magically get my body to start up again and I feel better in the following hours ! I get at least a full day of illness off
It's not magic, it's science, your body needs proper movement
I also think not spreading ones germs around your local climbing wall should also be a good citizen consideration.
For the record I went plant-based (mostly whole-foods) quite a few years back and haven't been ill since, so it really depends on circumstance. I relate to getting a really mild symptom (throat/ear/headache) which never seems to develop into anything more. It's a godsend especially over winter-time!
The comments are interesting. For me personally, I always seemed to have less illness when I was doing focus training. Generally, I'm eating healthily during those times, so there is major confounding here.
My main concern about a lot of publications, is regarding the study design and if they did a controlled trial with appropriate sample size. If they did not, did they assess and address study limitations (they should do this anyway......)? I always ask this question, when I read a paper.
In this case, it sounds like this was clear and acknowledged it's limitations though. This is refreshing. It's amazing to me, how many peer reviewed publications do not do this. Or try to put the focus on it's findings/conclusions.
But often a goal is to get citations, not just to do good science.
I had winter periods over the last couple of years when my son was continually bringing colds and viruses home every couple of weeks. I'd feel unwell maybe 50% (with varying severity) of the time. If I hadn't done any training during those times I'd have hardly done anything else.
I continued with my normal programme but reduced the volume. I still made max strength progress with resistance exercises like benchpress, deadlifts, and fingerboarding. I found hard bouldering and sport climbing impossible to progress during these periods mainly due to fatigue.
I also basically worked, trained and went home and rested, not much rushing about or socialising. I don't know whether the training prolonged my bouts of illness or made me more likely to get subsequent infections but anecdotally nearly all the parents I knew in the same area experienced a lot of colds.
Great video there Dave. Please stick with here, I’ve recently read, (fiction book) see below from “Para phasing” quotation from book. After a character had, had a severe heart attack & was critical ill in hospital, his wife said to their daughter
“if he hadn’t got that virus years ago, it he had rest like the doctors said instead of rushing back to his high stressed work, to life, if he had looked after himself & his heart better would it even have happened?”
Then I remembering what you said about ‘stepping back from training when you have cold or flu virus, to let your body deal with it, before pushing yourself again.”
See where I come in here’s that I was a competitive; cyclist, road & MTB; runner road & fells, was a good standard rock climber (onsite E6 - 7 or up to F8a+) a hill walker, skier, always fit & active often stepping back when ill but sometimes trained through colds, injury over the last 40 years. Otherwise I lived a health, drink free, smoke free & vegetating life style. Although also have used a Heart Rate Monitor over the last 30 plus years & noted that your heart rate often showed a slowing increase &/or lag before an illness struck
See I’m now recovering from dying from a massive heart attack, & having had triple bypass surgery and have learnt how important rest & recovery are to you heart, body & health.
See these things have started me wondering if there was any research that might show a link with training through illness & heart issues that you were aware of! Even though one of my surgeons actually said at the time, that being so fit might have help stave off the heart attack until my mid 50’s.
Therefore I was wondering, as you quoted a paper about colds & training, if you were aware of anything about the effects of training on the heart when ill or having a virus, Dave?
Great video Dave! I know you don’t typically like to consume oils. Was curious how you like to cook your eggs (season/sauce if any) for breakfast?
Dear Dave,
would you be interested in making a video on, mabye even an experiment with creatine? It seems to me that climbing is one of the sports where it is used the most rarely, although especially newer evidence suggests it is quite a powerful supplement.
Thank you,
Niklas
Great little video. I personally think a walk is the minimum, at least get out and move a little, maybe some hang board, again at a minimum. Im also curious as to what had you eating a western diet? Was it the holidays or vacation? I personally was off the keto for the holidays and I too am a little under the weather, but I was still in the training room today.
Listened to two podcasts/videos today and twice heard someone say they switched to a more nutrient dense/ whole food diet and then almost never got sick again.
And it's been the same for me. I always considered myself to have a weak immune system after I had glandular fever as a child. Would get sick 5 or 6 times a year.. then I really focused on eating more real food, vegetables, fruit and meat, massively cut down on alcohol and sugar, and I've been sick once (probably Covid) in a year and a half. An absolute miracle for me.
I experience exactly the same thing as you in that I feel like I have a bit of a virus (normally coinciding with everyone around me getting sick) but it just doesn't develop into any real illness.
I do
Didn't I watch this a few hours ago?
I saw it too, I think there was a problem with the title screen. I remember it being a weird symbol, probably indicating some clip wasn't found.
Oh yeah, I saw that clip too and didn't know what it was.
My own experience of years of low carb/keto and not getting colds then getting a cold when I periodically drop out of that pattern to a more carb orientated diet, typically at Christmas, closely mirrors yours, it’s very obvious.
What about cofounders, ie you change your diet because you are visiting family.
Huh I just wrote a comment reply and it disappeared
Alright I guess the internet ate that one. My question was: what about confounders like changing your diet because it’s Christmas and you meet family?
Train however you want when sick but for the love of god do not go to the climbing gym sick or even under the weather. We really do not need to breath your germs.
I have an omnivore diet and I had abou ~7 years without ever catching a cold. I didn't change my diet. Did your diet influence this? This is correlation as you pointed out so let's not even suggest otherwise
If you feel like shit, how would you train anyway? It’s not like you can just ignore it when getting out of bed is already difficult. Not to mention that climbing with others while you have an infectious disease is very egoistic.
Not many common colds are that bad that getting out of bed is difficult, unless immunity is pretty poor. No-one said anything about climbing with others - that isn't necessary.
I'm loving the monsoon that's occurring in the background
very interesting, and frustrarting to see gaps in knowledge that could be pretty widly applicable! I'm mostly a runner and pretty loose on how I train. With a relativly well managed asthma and family and work I do tend to push through these kind of things a bit with a bit of expecation managemnt on performance. My main risk is an experianced missed, but i do apprecate the thinking around long game impact. todays reckless is tomorrow's injury
What do you think about a “keto” diet with carb-backloading? Did you ever try something similar?