Persistent Cold Aggravated by training

Rafe Kelley · 05-13-2010, 01:23 PM

Curious if anyone has any input on this

On april 13th I came down with flu like symptoms (clogged sinus, cough, headache, sore throat, malaise, low mood, cramping muscles), stayed home all day, ate a bunch of ginger and garlic, felt fine the next day, trained hard, felt worse the next day but passable, ended up doing that for a few days feel better train, feel worse rest.

On the 23rd I did a long hard training session finishing with a 7 minute metcon style obstacle course. I felt sick again saturday but pushed through however I was not able to get up for work on monday.

I had persistent but very minor symptoms until last week when I felt it coming on a little bit on thursday, did a hard filming session saturday but my energy was below normal, woke in very poor mood with low energy but no other symptoms on sunday, then I was miserable monday, worse tuesday, not much improvement the last couple days.

Lymph nodes on the right side of my neck are very swollen and sore to the touch.

I was cutting weight up until 2 weeks ago with an IF approach but diet has been otherwise solid, lots of varieties of pastured meat and eggs, green vegetables with every meal, just about everything organic and as much local as possible.

Here is an an example of an approximately typical days diet.

Breakfast 11 am, 4-5 oz ground lamb bison or beef, 3-4 oz of eggs(duck or chicken) 4 oz of yam, 1 oz butter, 2 oz of cheese, 2 oz of almonds, 6 oz cabbage or broccolli

Mid day snack 3-4pm, 4 oz greek yogurt with .5 oz of honey, 3 oz of berries

Dinner 9-10pm 8-10 oz of meat (ground, stir fry, steak, lamb, bison, beef, pork), 4-6 oz sautted onions and mushrooms, 8-10 oz cabbage and or broccolli, 4 oz of cheese, 3 oz almonds.

Desert 1 piece of toast with 1 oz butter and fruit perserves

I just got dropped by my health insurance and won't have any coverage until next month.

Garrett Smith · 05-13-2010, 02:49 PM

You keep digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole. If you don't do something significant to change your workout intensity and schedule to something less, it will take you a lot longer to get out of the immunocompromised rut you are in.

Excessive volume and intensity wreck your immune system. This is not uncommon to see among long distance runners and metcon fanatics.

If you'd like my help in this, PM me.

Steven Low · 05-13-2010, 03:05 PM

What Garrett said.

Basically, you need to stop training and rest for a couple weeks.

Swollen lymph nodes = no good.

Intensity during training requires immune response to pick up after the localized damage on the muscles and other systems diverting its attention from your sickness. Hence, why you keep relapsing.

Rafe Kelley · 05-13-2010, 04:08 PM

Kinda what I knew I figured I was completely shut down for a week after the symptoms here clear up. I doesn't seem like my intensity has been that high I am certainly neither distance runner nor met con junky. I have been trying to amp the intensity of my parkour training but that has been limited by my feet still being delicate from the injuries I had this winter.

My training schedule since march has been something like this.

M/T/TH/S parkour never more then 2 hours often less 1, 1 or 2x a week strength training(30 minutes of warm up rehab, followed by 30-45 minutes of heavy training) where I rotated a dynamic effort, repeative effort and max effort type day, focused on deadlift, pull ups, and dip, thats cumulative of less then 10 hours a week of training with real high intensity stuff only a couple times a week at most. I have certainly trained more intensely in the past.

Garrett Smith · 05-13-2010, 05:25 PM

There is a cumulative effect...as in, if you trained really intensely in the past plus your recent weight cutting adventure, a little bit of rest is not going to bring you back much.

You need a more focused "rehab" routine for your system. You're likely deficient in some key minerals and your adrenals may be underfunctioning. We can know this by testing.

Darryl Shaw · 05-15-2010, 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rafe Kelley

I was cutting weight up until 2 weeks ago with an IF approach but diet has been otherwise solid, lots of varieties of pastured meat and eggs, green vegetables with every meal, just about everything organic and as much local as possible.

Here is an an example of an approximately typical days diet.

Breakfast 11 am, 4-5 oz ground lamb bison or beef, 3-4 oz of eggs(duck or chicken) 4 oz of yam, 1 oz butter, 2 oz of cheese, 2 oz of almonds, 6 oz cabbage or broccolli

Mid day snack 3-4pm, 4 oz greek yogurt with .5 oz of honey, 3 oz of berries

Dinner 9-10pm 8-10 oz of meat (ground, stir fry, steak, lamb, bison, beef, pork), 4-6 oz sautted onions and mushrooms, 8-10 oz cabbage and or broccolli, 4 oz of cheese, 3 oz almonds.

Desert 1 piece of toast with 1 oz butter and fruit perserves

Everybody catches a cold or the flu from time to time but it could be that your poor recovery is because you still aren't eating enough CHO to fuel your training load so you're probably still going to be having problems with central fatigue as I explained here.

Take a week off from training, fix your diet (more carbs) and you'll be fine.

Mike ODonnell · 05-16-2010, 09:50 AM

Think of it not catching anything, but doing something to drop your immune system to let it take over.

IF + low calories + Excess intensity = eventual burnout

I would balance out your low carb with pwo carb eating or spreading it out....as for me I've personally found that low carb + intensity = burnout too.

Happens to the best of us....you may need more than a week to recover and have to rethink the intensity of your workouts. Dieting + high intensity don't mix well in excess.....as seen over and over again.

Garrett Smith · 05-17-2010, 06:27 AM

Rafe,
I said something back when you did your rapid cutting that this may be a major issue.

I do think you need more carbs. However, in my experience, to simply increase your carbs and take a week off and then jump right back in to what you were doing may leave you saying: "...and I was never the same after that."

Better to take this more seriously than less, IMO.

Craig Brown · 05-17-2010, 02:51 PM

Don't you have a new gym, too? All the stressors add up. You've got solid advice. It's hard to hear, but it can save you some pain...

Rafe Kelley · 05-18-2010, 12:35 PM

Hey guys thanks for the concern and advice. I have been eating ad libitum with starch in the form of sweet potato or sprouted grain bread(or other less healthfull options here and there) at every meal so I don't think carb restriction is an on going problem. My flu symptoms have largely dissipated now and I was able to train lightly saturday and monday with no ill effects. Going to continue doing low intensity training(stopping whenever I find myself breathing hard no max level jumps, hard climbing, or lifting) through the end of the week, then slowly amp up from there. Weight is stable at 198-200 pounds aprox body fat 10-12 which is about 5 pounds and 2 percent higher then I wanted to be but will have to do for now. It was my intention to stop dieting at this point anyways to return my focus to progressing in performance.

My performance has been very good, I feel very light and powerful vertical leap is up 3 inches(27-30) broad jump up 3 as well (9^3 9^6) started playing with flips again have found myself getting more height and quicker tucks then ever before, I didn't train pull ups for 2 weeks and set a 2 rep PR first try back, muscle ups are feeling easier as well,so the weight loss certainly benefited me.

The negative side aside form the recurrent cold, is often when training I have found myself having energy crashes and feelings of hazyness it is a bizarre feeling. I am able to move powerful and with control but everything feels fuzzy, and I get light headed as soon as I stop moving.

I am guessing these are more important signals then I took them for and for the next while I will stop any training sessions were I start feeling these symptoms.