I think when you are sick, your body needs to take the energy you would spend on exercise and heal itself. I think exercising when you are sick might just prolong your illness. Be gentle with yourself and listen to your body. It will tell you what it needs.

Symptoms neck up (stuffy nose, bit of a headache), go for it, neck down (sore throat, hacking cough) skip it. Fever - skip it. That's about it, I go by neck up, down.

Originally Posted by seagirl:
My rules are: all cold symptoms = stay out of the gym!!! Above the neck (head cold) do a walk or weights at home. Below the neck (in my lungs) rest.

Soul sistah!! lol :)

I don't do any form of high intensity exercise when I am sick. if i have sinus problems or the symptoms are generally in the head I find that a walk just as the sun is rising or at sun set helps to clear out the mucus (because of the cold and moisture in the air). If it is in the lungs, I don't even attempt to exercise.

I haven't read through these so I apologize if I'm repeating someone's answer.

My rules are if all my symptoms are above the neck, I exercise. If it's below the neck then I sit it out til I feel better.

I actually did a little research on this. I read that if the cold is above your neck, like a head cold exercising can actually help to fight it. If you have a fever and coughing and chest congestion it's not recommended. I followed this and I haven't been sick yet this year. My partner would get the full blown head cold but I just kept exercising through it and I believe it helped me to fight it. Yes my nose would be dripping as I did planks etc, but my body fought the cold that much more. Keep it moderate and listen to your body, don't do the high intensity. If you really feel tired and achy in your body rest. Here's a couple of the articles I read:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/maia20.htm
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/i.../aa011402a.htm

Thnks for all of your responses. I actually did go for a run yesterday, and there is some truth to helping fight off the cold....I felt so much better when I was done. My nose was dripping the entire time but when I was done I could breathe through it again =D so guess thats a success? hahaha Wasn't to high of an intensity, and I cut about 20 minutes off from my workout but glad I went

Feel better!

For me it depends on the kind of exercise and how sick I am. If it's some sort of head cold I don't want to go to one of the classes where we are jumping around, haha. I will do weight training or spinning though.

If it's some respiratory thing then I stay out of the gym. I always have more problems with lungs when a cold gets to them and the last thing I need is to pass out again.