During last week, after I had seen my strength gains, if you had asked me how I felt, I would have said great. However, come Friday, my answer, my answer would have been, fluish.
What a terrible thing to happen, just when I had seen some progress. Friday, I had planned to keep my momentum going with my back. It was not meant to be, as I came home early from work, passed out, and woke up with a fever and sore throat. Part of me wanted to just take some Motrin and go. Sanity kicked in, and I made myself stay in bed the rest of the day, forcing myself to drink water, and that’s pretty much it.
Saturday, I felt much better; at least I told myself I did. After all, when I was competing as an athlete, there was more than one occasion that a coach had fibbed about the seriousness of a fever and I had gone out and played. No big deal.
Anyway, my fever had come down, and I went about with my day like nothing was wrong. I had eaten some soup, but just wasn’t feeling all that hungry. I figured I would take a quick snooze before heading to workout; I intended to do a light workout. 1) I was still sick, 2) Since I wasn’t 100%, I didn’t want to lift because I wouldn’t have seen the gains I had seen during the week.
After I woke up, my temperature had risen a bit again to about 100F. Should I, shouldn’t I go work out? I said screw it, I got up, grabbed a (sugar-free) red bull, and went to the gym. The Saturday evening spin class isn’t too bad, so I did that. I got in a good sweat, and, lo and behold, I felt great! Released some endorphins, and fever was completely gone. It was a fever that I just had to sweat out!
Obviously, I didn’t have the flu if I could hit the gym the second day into my sickness. Still I was sick, and determined to force it to go away. Definitely, the endorphins helped, and it wasn’t a super intense workout. I did the same thing on Sunday, about 45 minutes of cardio that was not too intense for me.
Before I go on, I should point out that working out when you are really sick is inconsiderate. Forgetting about how I felt, if I had bee really ill and did have the flu, and still went to the gym, I could have infected other people.
Many people say that you can’t sweat a fever out. I don’t know whether that is true or not. It could be a mind over matter thing. If you believe you feel ill, you will be ill, to some extent. I think that is why my coaches wouldn’t be completely transparent the few times I really was sick and they convinced me I wasn’t. In any case, this time, I really did have a fever that I had to sweat out.
Posted by fitfiend 
