Getting Ill After Exercising?

If you’re getting ill after exercising or experience weakened immune system, fever, cold, allergies, general fatigue, runny nose…, heed the following.

There can be more reasons but mainly it comes about through one mechanism.

Attack on the immune system.

Resistance training is a shock and stress for the organism. It can be such a shock that the body will start defending itself. High temperature, fever, or allergic reactions, all are a result of the body’s defense mechanisms. These demonstrate that the body considers itself to be under attack and starts defending itself.

With weight training, we don’t want to shock your organism and immune system greatly  We want to shock the muscles.

In essence, if you’re getting ill after exercising, it means your body is experiencing greater shock than it can handle.

If you have weakened immune defenses, the reasons for such a shock can be many. Look over these and determine which ones pertain to you:

• Sudden high intensity training after a long break or beginner’s start with great intensity.
• Long workouts over 60 minutes.
• Not having a good meal 90-120 minutes before exercising.
• Not having a meal within 1 hour after your workout.
• Inadequate water intake during training.
• Not getting enough sleep. (7-8 hours).
• Exercising or jogging after 10 PM.
• Inadequate nutrition during the week.
• Not getting enough sleep during the whole week.

Hormonal Forces

Powerful hormonal forces are activated through resistance training. They can be very beneficial or detrimental. Exercising can cause lowering of insulin‘s activity. It can also cause higher cortisol levels, and by it, of insulin.

Proper resistance training is one of the few most powerful activators of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and testosterone.

Weight training has anti aging effects, activates fat burning, increases immune function. But improper and excessive exercising, with improper nutrition and inadequate sleep, will have the reverse effects.

Resistance training can stimulate increased secretion of testosterone. It can also suppress testosterone to a low level. It can suppress cortisol but it can also raise it on a much high level.

To say that weight training is healthy is just a generalized statement. Weight training is a means to stimulate hormones. How you will use it, will determine how much and what hormones will be stimulated/destimulated.

To achieve muscle growth and the ideal figure, you need intensive even beastly workouts. But up to such intensity you should arrive gradually, allowing your immune system to adapt and become able to tolerate the shock. This way your immune system, health and muscles get stronger.

With a training and nutrition program from us, you can rest assured that all these factors have been taken care of.

Exhaustion

Long workouts over 60 minutes are not recommended, not only because of the immune system. It very is possible to train 90 minutes without getting ill and without any problem. Prolonged workouts activate cortisol which directly hinders and slows your training gains.

Inadequate nutrition can also be a major factor in getting ill as the body doesn’t have enough energy and raw materials to rehabilitate itself and starts to exhaust itself.

Inadequate sleep can be very strong factor in getting ill after exercising. With the best nutrition and supplements before and after exercising but without enough sleep, you can still get ill after exercising. Enough sleep means sleeping 8 hours every day.

As the body starts to lower its energy mechanisms a few hours before midnight, exercising during this period presents a shock (thus this is the best period to start sleeping). In this period of lowered energy production, the body becomes more vulnerable and if subjected to stress, it will start defending itself with high temperatures, allergic reactions, etc.

What to Do if You’re Getting Ill After Exercising:

• Intake of all vitamins and minerals during the day.
• Don’t work out until you’ve completely recovered from the illness.
• Take 1000-1500 mg vitamin C immediately before your workout.
• Have a meal 60 minutes at the latest after the workout.
• Take 5 grams of BCAA amino acids before and after workouts.
• Take 5 grams of glutamine before and after training.
• Take 5 grams of creatine daily.
• Intake of 20-50 mg zinc daily.
• Lower intensity of exercising – less reps, exercises and sets, lower weights.
• Exercise 45 minutes max.
• Do not exercise more than 3, maximum 4 days a week.
• Have at least 1 day rest between workouts.
• Drink at least 500 ml water during your workouts.
• Drink at least 2 liters of water daily.

In any case, the first thing is to go to a doctor and run the necessary tests, blood and urine analysis, etc., as there might be other conditions which independently of exercising are weakening your immune system, whereas exercising only accentuates them.