The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Ep. 225 Should you WORKOUT when your SICK

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 2 • Episode 225

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Navigating the delicate balance between consistency and recovery is essential for every fitness enthusiast. Have you ever struggled with deciding whether to push through a workout while feeling under the weather? This episode provides clarity on this common dilemma by exploring the science-backed "neck rule" that helps determine when exercise might help versus when it could harm your recovery.

We dive into fascinating immune system science, revealing how your body becomes temporarily vulnerable after intense exercise—a phenomenon so significant that elite Soviet Olympic athletes wore masks after training sessions to protect themselves during this window of compromised immunity. You'll learn practical strategies for supporting your immune function during illness, from optimizing sleep to strategic steam room sessions that may help alleviate respiratory symptoms.

The episode also addresses the psychological challenge of training interruptions. Rather than viewing illness as a fitness failure, you'll discover how to frame these periods as strategic recovery that ultimately serves your long-term goals. Whether you're a personal trainer guiding clients through illness or an individual navigating your own fitness journey, this episode provides the knowledge to make informed decisions that honor both your health and your athletic ambitions. Share your fitness journey openly—setbacks included—because authentic progress inspires others far more than perfectionism ever could. Remember that temporary pauses don't derail your goals; they're simply part of the path to sustainable progress.

Want to ask us a question? Email email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

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Speaker 1:

Talk about goals that you have. It makes you uncomfortable, which means it's the right thing to do. We have to get out of our comfort zone and you're going to have followers. You're going to have people who reach out and are going to thank you and they're going to want your services. You're going to have some dipshit Troy14 saying oh, you're a wimp, just push through it, or you're not even that big. You don't even look like you work out. Screw those dipshits. You're doing this to help people.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today we're going to be talking about when is it okay to train. If you got a little cold, is it going to be counterproductive? Can you push through it? What is the best advice for yourself, but also for clients? My little rug rat came home the other day with some sniffles, starts picking his nose Little sucker must be learning it from me and what do you know, he gets sick. And so three or four days later, I start getting a sore throat went to my chest. As a parent, when your kid gets sick, you know it's only a matter of time before you get sick. And so I had a little chest cold and the general rule of thumb that they're going to tell you. I'm not talking about military MMA or David Goggins Hell, he was doing a pull-up contest and he got rhabdo and he still pushed through it.

Speaker 1:

That's not us. I'm talking about you and me. What should we do when it comes to our training? When you get a little bit of a cold, and the general advice is it above the neck or below the neck. So if you just have a little bit of the snuffles and you're not feeling that great, it's probably okay to do a workout. We're not going to go to our normal high, intense, zero RIR. You're going to just get your feet wet, get the heart rate going and then, more than likely, you're going to be okay. But what happens is when it gets below the neck and it gets more total body, your somatic symptoms, where you maybe have a head cold as well as chest congestion, it's usually best not to work out. If you talk to 10 people, you're going to have that one outlier who's going to say well, when I have a chest cold, I work out, it's fine. I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the general consensus. So when we look at what's happening physiologically, the body's going to send these cool specialized cells.

Speaker 1:

That's our lymphatic system, one of the 14 systems of the human body. You should know that, as a qualified trainer which you are, when you show up and you attend the Atlanta in person or Santa Monica, we're also gonna be in Denver, which is now sold out. We have three spots left for people in the area, but if you work at Lifetime, it's sold out for Lifetime and then we're gonna be in Miami at the end of June. So when you are a qualified trainer, you know the systems of the body, the 17 muscles of the shoulder, you're networking with professionals. The lymphatic system is our defense system and when we exercise, even if we're not sick, we have this window about an hour post-exercise where our immune system is compromised.

Speaker 1:

Dr Kramer was my professor at the University of Connecticut and I remember him telling the story. This is over 20 years ago. The Soviets, during their sixth Olympiad mastery it was like 24 years. They were just killing everyone. They were getting golds in every powerlifting event there was. They were known for leaving the facilities after their workouts with masks, and the reason that they were doing that is to protect their immune system, because it was more vulnerable.

Speaker 1:

This would be a great time to consume some things that are high in vitamin C. That could help with the excess free radicals that would be floating around. Free radicals are awesome. They are going to attach to viruses and things in the body and get them out of the system. So by consuming some stuff that may be higher in these antioxidants, it's just going to help boost your immune system.

Speaker 1:

So if you are exercising and you go kick ass for an hour, cardio is usually the worst too. It affects your immune system the worst. So if you were to do a weight training session and some cardio, you're going to have this vulnerability. So you go home and you pick up your kid and they're coughing and sneezing all over you, throwing their little green boogers at you. The likelihood of you being susceptible to some type of illness is just going to increase. So that hour window is super important. Now you have to listen to your own body and I think it's really important for trainers to understand. When a client reaches out and they say they're a little under the weather, I always say do not come in because that one session isn't a big deal. But if I get sick and I'm out for three days and I'm training eight times per day, that's 24 sessions. If you're charging a hundred bucks an hour, that's $2,400 that you just missed out on.

Speaker 1:

One of the follies of being a personal trainer is we don't have that residual income every single month. One month it can be high, the next month it can be low. So you need to be really careful and prioritize your health. The best thing we can do when we're under the weather optimize our sleep, make sure hydration is high and just listen to your body. If it's a yellow discharge, that's typically more bacterial. I'm not talking about down there, I'm talking about your nose and phlegm in your mouth. If it's green now that's more of a viral infection. So you definitely want to be aware of the color of the discharge and what you're coughing up.

Speaker 1:

Today was the first day back in the gym. Today was the first day back in the gym. I was still doing my arm farm challenge because I'm a meathead, and I said for 30 straight days I'm going to be doing curls every day, which I did Sometimes. I didn't post it because it's at my house and my garage is a mess, so it didn't look aesthetically appeasing, but I still did arms every day. My volume was just significantly lower. One day I did a set of six with the 50s curled, those suckers like nothing. But I left a bunch in the tank. I didn't go to volitional fatigue. One day I just held some 20s for a minute isometrically. So it's still aligned with my challenge of doing arms for 30 days. But I didn't do any big lifts, I didn't bench, I didn't squat, I didn't do deadlifts or even pull-ups and so forth. I just kind of let my body rest.

Speaker 1:

When I started feeling a little better, I went for a mile run. I went at six miles per hour. It took me 10 minutes just to kind of see how I felt and I didn't feel great. So I knew I was like okay, I'm not going to keep on pushing this. One thing I did do is every day I would go into the steam room. It helps just kind of jumpstart your immune system. You're also going to be drinking a lot of water posts you should be at least so you're getting a ton of fluids in your system. You're kind of sweating it out. Your lungs, your kidneys, your liver. They do their job when it comes to the detoxification process and trying to boost your immunity.

Speaker 1:

For me, being a lifetime asthmatic, my lungs get really raspy and jacked up. My voice may be even off. Right now you hear me doing that all the time. It's because my lungs will get congested. It typically would go into some type of bronchitis.

Speaker 1:

I was a bubble boy growing up. I ate so much damn prednisone I swear I should be six, nine. But because of all that prednisone I was taking when I was a younger kid that's what stunted my growth. So I'm just a paltry 6'1". That's my theory at least. But I was on a bunch of medications because I was always sick, literally. I talk about it in my book. I had giardia, I had asthma. All the freaking time. I had to get allergy shots twice a week. I was a freaking bubble boy. Probably the best for me, because now I don't get sick very much, but now that I do have a toddler it's happening more often.

Speaker 1:

But when I sense those symptoms starting to peak their nasty head upon myself, I go okay, well, what is the risk and reward? I love exercising, but if I were to do an hour workout every more times than not it's going to make the symptoms worse later on. So it's really pushing through it in my ego, taking a step quote unquote forward, but then I'm going to have four steps back. So with this last little episode, I would say seven days I was under the weather. I was still able to come to work and write and do some content and put on a facade like I do on YouTube. But when it comes to my output in the gym, I knew I wouldn't be there.

Speaker 1:

So today, first day back on bench, I did a 5-3-1, kept the volume pretty low and I could feel my output. My neural innervation was pretty good. I hit 225 for five and I hit 245 for three and I went back to 265 and I got that for one, with maybe one or two reps in reserve, I'm guessing my one RM right now is about 285. By the end of June I would like to be between 295 and 300. Quarter three I'm hoping to get around 305, 310. And then by the end of the year I will be on track for 315, as I set out to do in the beginning of the year. I think this is an important thing to highlight because we're coming up on the end of May, so we have one more month until quarter two is over. That's the halfway point and I'm not giving up on my goals I set out in the beginning of the year.

Speaker 1:

My new year's resolution was to bench 315 again, because it's been five or six years since I attempted that. I made that goal, I publicized it and now I'm working at it and there's going to be setbacks and those setbacks are really important because they define who you are. What we do today is we make some outrageous goals or they're not even that great. I want to lose weight and then we work out for two, three weeks and then we give up because we get sick and we put on 15 pounds and that's the rat race that we deal with. So if you really want to level yourself up mentally and physically, I challenge you to get into your story.

Speaker 1:

Talk about goals that you have. It makes you uncomfortable, which means it's the right thing to do. We have to get out of our comfort zone and you're going to have followers. You're going to have people who reach out and are going to thank you and they're going to want your services. You're going to have some dipshit Troy 14 saying, oh you're a wimp, just push through it, or you're not even that big. You don't even look like you work out. Screw those dipshits. You're doing this to help people and your journey is just as important as the journey that you're helping your clients go through, and they want to see it.

Speaker 1:

So, if you do have a little hiccup and you're not feeling well, use today's podcast as a barometer. Are you spitting up a bunch of green and yellow stuff and you're not feeling good somatically, which means the whole body maybe? Take a couple of days off Slowly, get back into it. Get some steps, go walk on a treadmill, a little bit of elevation, but don't go right back into balls of the wall. Everything you have, slowly but surely. And please don't call me Shirley if you don't know that reference from airplane. Oh, my God, I'm getting old. Hopefully you enjoyed today's podcast. Get into your story. Talk about your PRs, get ready for that Swift for the end of May and remember big biceps are better than small ones and keep showing up.