Today’s Coaches Corner question has been asked by Simon Tacx as well as couple of other members this week. Simon wanted to more about training or racing with illness.
Firstly I am not a doctor so all the information below is based on personal opinion and
experience.
Symptoms
Your body will give you subtle hints, so ask fatigue, tiredness, loss of appetite, poor sleep quality, temperature as well as the classic signs of coughing, running noise etc. Also looks to other factors during your training. Is your normal working heart rate higher than normal, are you finding that you aren’t as powerful, strong etc. These are key signs saying that your body is stress out due to illness or over training with insufficient rest. You might be eating or drinking more as the body will be using key energy stores to fit the illness or infection.
Illness & training / racing
Coughs and colds are common at times of year when the temperature / environments change, sitting in trains, flying, air conditioned offices all contribute to common illness. The question is, it’s it in your chest area or head.
I have found that head colds have little physiological effects to training but psychological effect the mind set. With this I would look to continue to train HOWEVER reduce the intensity level to more low level to avoid stressing out the body as high intensity exercise causes stress on the body.
If the illness is more central in the body, I would always stop training, look to seek medical advice / medicine to help the body combat the illness. Training with a chest cough or other illness could have longer term effects.
Training / Racing
If you can train, you should race. The issue is more the mental side. If you had a broken arm etc you can accept the situation, with a cold, illness you feel that you should and then guilty for bailing out. If you chose to race ill then you won’t enjoy the event, and could make yourself worse. It’s always a tough call but one that should be taken
Illness vs injury
With anything, the degree of illness or injury will effect what you as an athlete can do. If you have a calf or Achilles injury which stops you from running, then normally a Physio will advise to what extent you can train but commonly this would still permit swimming and seated cycling as the force / load applied through the calf is minimal compared to running.
Broken bones, due to the typical nature of a cast it can naturally stop training. Always see your Physio or doctors advice in regards to what training you can do.
