Conversely, I seem to be way more resilient when I’m just ticking over with a nice low level of training.Īnd there’s data to back this theory up too. I am (and always have been) way more susceptible to illness immediately after times of high stress (be that heavy training, big races, periods of stress at work or lots of back-to-back long haul travel). It’s thought that this is because demanding training creates physical damage in the body, which in turn causes a range of stress responses that leave the immune system compromised and our bodies more open to the infections, germs and viruses that we inevitably encounter in day-to-day life.ĭepending on the level of stress induced by a bout of exercise, it’s thought that the “window of susceptibility” can last anywhere from three to 72 hrs after training or competition.įrom personal experience I’m convinced that I’ve experienced this “J curve” in action many times. But those training very, very hard run an increased risk of getting sick. In other words, athletes training lightly are better protected from coughs and colds than couch surfers. However as exercise intensity or training load increases beyond a certain point, our risk of getting ill actually increases. It can even begin to exceed the risk associated with doing no exercise at all! The theory goes that when we do some moderate exercise our chance of catching URTIs drops (presumably because of the positive effects light exercise tends to have on our overall health). The graph below (taken from a 1994 paper on the subject) illustrates this idea nicely: There’s a long standing and widely held (though not fully proven) belief that exercising has a “J” shaped effect on the immune system and, by extension, on your susceptibility to picking up infections and illnesses. Understanding what you can do to minimize the chances of getting sick is a good idea so that you can avoid interruptions to your TrainingPeaks training plan over the off-season (or when your heavy training begins again).īut, just how susceptible are athletes to getting sick? Winter is nearly upon us and as the air temperature drops, you can bet your bottom dollar that an increased number of us will be missing training sessions with coughs, colds, sore throats and the flu.
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