Illness and Exercise

[Chops]

Hi,

Over the last year I have taken a lot of steps toward losing weight, including eating the right kinds of fats, removing sugar from my diet, drinking only water/tea/coffee, and incorporating weight training and cardio into my weekly schedule.

None of my changes have been drastic or unrealistic. I use light weights and eat sensibly without starving myself or removing all of one macro-nutrient from my diet. The problem I am having is occurring after 2-3 weeks of a new work-out plan.

I combine large muscle weight lifting (squat, bench, row) with a cardio workout afterwards, and do that three times a week. It usually takes 1-1.5 hrs to complete. I stay hydrated and eat something appropriate before and after.

What's happening is that after 2-3 weeks of this plan, I become moderately sick. We're talking flu/cold kinds of sick. Lots of runny noses, unexpected trips to the bathroom, general weakness, shortness of breath and all of that. Anyone who has had a bad flu can imagine that and relate to how I feel.

I have been tracking the issue and three times I have started a workout plan and gotten sick 2-3 weeks later, and then if I wait to get well, and then avoid significant exercise, I remain free of sickness.

Is this just a part of strengthening the body, or is it possible I have an issue with my immune system that needs to be addressed if I am going to continue to work out?

For reference, I am 26, 6'2, obese, sedentary at work and home, have no history of major illness in myself or my family, and typically do get a flu or a cold once a year.

Should I keep working out or visit a doctor, or is this common and addressable seperately?

[tonester]

Seeing a doctor is the way to go. Perhaps a sport med doctor or your family doctor may refer you to someone familiar with endocrine issues.

Go lite until then.

[JoshDunn]

Moderate intensity exercise actually boosts immune system, but high intensity impairs immune function.

-What cardio program are you doing?
-Can you outline what programs you've been doing and a history of weight training.
-What does "light" mean?

Exercise in itself should never cause illness (and is actually used to rehabilitate people with chronic disease) but it could be simply that since your relatively new to this you may be over doing it.

[Chops]

I've been a beginner lifter for a couple of years. I've only just recently moved into free weight lifting and focusing on multiple joint movement lifts like the squat and dead-lift. Of those lifts I'm staying very light, usually just the bar (45lbs), or at most adding an additional 40lbs. I'm still trying to get the form down since I am not using machines anymore.

The typical workout is a circuit workout. It's 6 sets of the following 9rep exercises chained together:

Bent-over row
Standing Military Press
Good Mornings
Split Squats (9 reps each leg)
Regular Squat followed by an explosive shoulder and hip movement that pops the bar into the air and catching it in an extended military position
Finally a bent over dead lift with shoulder roll at the end.

It's a grappling circuit used by wrestlers and jiu jitsu students. My form is good and I'm to a point that I can start adding weight, but not much, it's mainly for reps and muscle endurance.

I follow that with interval or static recumbent bike cardio. I drink plenty of water and have done the above exercises with more weight on machines, but I have removed the weight for form practice and safety.

The intervals are 60 sec 90 percent max, and then 1-2mins 30 percent, and usually 20-30mins. 5 min warm up and cool down as well.

I never feel like I am pushing myself really hard, but I sweat quite a bit and my muscles are "sore" the following day, but I'm never in pain or to the point of exhaustion or failure.

It might be too much, but I feel I cope well. I suspect my nutrition, or possible allergies/sinus issues triggered when I'm raising my heart rate and having to depend on more oxygen, but I'm not physician.

Thanks for the advice so far!

[JoshDunn]

How many calories have you cut in order to lose the weight? I'm not a nutritionist so maybe hit up alan aragon for advice on this issue.

Would you be willing to drop the intervals for me, for a few weeks and see how the recovery goes? If you want to do some cardio do something less intense, but still burning some calories.

Off now. Be back later.

[rem1956]

sounds to me like classic overtraining. I'm not an expert but I would lighten my workout. 1.5 hrs is a long workout if it is intense. You may not be allowing enough time for your body to recover. Try adding an extra day of recovery time between your workouts or cut back on the duration or intensity....see if this helps.

[Chops]

Thanks for all the feedback. As far as calories, that's where this gets really hairy. I don't have a huge amount of muscle mass at the moment, and I wouldwager I'm sitting at 36-40% BF. Calorie calcs keep telling me I need 3000+ calories to maintain that. I have been trying to stay around 2000 to 2200 every day to consume calories at the level I want to be at.

I'll stop the intervals for my next month and get two days of rest between lift days.

That will reduce it to a 30 min workout with plenty of time to rest.

[Lisa~]

If you rule out any underlying medical issue, then it appears that you just jump into more activity than your body is prepared to handle. While your program looks sound on paper, you are obviously not recovering from it. When you start again, build up to that level of effort over a period of time instead of just starting off with too much too soon.

You can also work on maximizing your recovery ability, mainly by making sure you are eating and sleeping on a regular schedule. An adequate amount of sleep is essential and consistently regular hours of sleep improve recovery more than any other recovery technique.