Should you perform your bodybuilding workouts when you are feeling tired?

Many times when you are tired it is hard to motivate yourself to perform a tough bodybuilding workout. As someone who works long hours, many times I have found myself in this predicament. However, in my experience, I have noticed that most of the time if you force yourself to go to the gym and start your workout, once your adrenaline kicks in you may have one of your best workouts ever.

My advice when you are feeling drained is the following:

1. Unless you have not slept well for several nights in a row, by all means go to the gym.

2. Do a couple of warm up sets and see how you feel. Depending upon the way you feel decide whether to either perform your full routine or instead a shorter bodybuilding workout of 25-30 minutes. If you do this, you will find out that ninety percent of the time you will have a great workout.

3. If after your warm up sets and the work sets of your first exercise you see that you are still drained, then pack your bags and leave. You will live to fight another day. When this is the case, that means that your body really needs some rest and recovery. Your nervous system and your adrenal glads will thank you for it too.

For more information on the importance of sleep, rest and recovery, check out this article: The Importance of Sleep and the 8 Maladies of Sleep Deprivation

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Sustaining an injury is something that will set you back, sometimes for months to an end. Thus, it is of utmost importance that certain rules be followed in order to stay injury free so that you can make the fastest progress at the gym. In order to help you with this, here are my Top 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Natural Bodybuilding Program Safely.

Top 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Natural Bodybuilding Program Safely

Injuries are a bodybuilder’s worst enemy and need to be avoided at all cost. They not only cause pain and discomfort, but also can potentially take you out of the gym for a few days and impair your ability to perform certain exercises. In addition, once injured, it is very easy to get re-injured again on the same area. While the tips below may seem very simple and basic, even the most advanced of us tend to forget a few of these at one time or the other and that is when trouble can happen.

1. Wear appropriate workout clothing.
Wear clothing that allows you to move all your body parts in a full range of motion. Restrictive clothing, like jeans for instance, would prevent you from performing an exercise such as the squats correctly and thus can lead to loss of balance and/or injury. Make sure that you also wear comfortable athletic shoes and always ensure they are tied.

2. When in doubt, ask for help.
If you don’t know how to perform an exercise or use a particular piece of equipment, please do not attempt to figure it out on your own. Either ask a trainer or knowledgeable gym member to help you or get an informative book to teach you correct exercise form.

3. Before you execute a lift, ensure all of the weight plates are secured.
Be extremely careful with not securing the weights with collars in an Olympic Bars. There have been so many times situations where a person is executing an exercise and the weights on one side slide, fall off, and thus cause a total imbalance where the trainee ends up dropping the other side. This cannot only hurt you but can hurt others around you. Therefore, please secure your weights.

4. Warm up before you move on to heavier weights.
I remember when I was a teenager and would start doing 225lbs on the bench press without a warm up. That was a bad idea. Now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I do a couple of lighter sets prior to using my working weight. So for instance, if I am going to do a squat with 450 pounds for 6-8 reps, I start warming up with 200lbs for 8-10, 350lbs for 8-10 and then 450 for 6-8.

5. Practice perfect form.
Leave the ego aside and practice perfect form. When you use heavier weights than what you can handle, your joints and bones are the ones that will take most of the stress. In addition, your form will probably be sacrificed. Bad form, combined with heavy weights, equals an injury waiting to happen. Perfect form will not only allow you to achieve faster results as your muscles will be doing most of the work, but also will prevent you from incurring into any injuries.

6. Use a safe lifting speed and avoid using momentum.
Perform the exercises in a controlled manner and with no momentum. Jerking and bouncing of weights will only take away stress from the muscle and create sheer (pushing and pulling) forces in the joints, and muscle insertions, that can lead to injury. Use a tempo of 2 sec when lifting the weight and 3 sec when lowering (the lowering portion needs to be performed a bit slower than the lifting one). At first, you may need to count in your head but eventually lifting speed becomes second nature.

7. Be aware of your surroundings.
You need to be aware of your surroundings whether you are performing an exercise or loading a bar. Make sure that there is no one standing in your path of execution. Along the same lines, ensure that the floor that you will be standing on is not slippery as I have seen situations where if there is a leak from the ceiling due to bad air conditioning or just a bad ceiling. In this case, inform someone from the staff and make sure that the soles of your shoes are not wet.

8. Stop exercising if you feel dizzy or like fainting.
This is pretty self-explanatory but as you get more advanced one tends to disregard these things. If you are having a real difficulty breathing, sit down and rest for 3 minutes or so. If you see that you are sweating cold then you need to stop as you are about to go into shock. This typically happens in very hot environments, which takes me to the next commandment.

9. If training on a garage, try to train in the morning during hot months.
Garages tend to get very hot during the summer. Do not try to workout in a place with a temperature that is well over 100 deg. That could lead to a heat stroke and that does not help with bodybuilding gains. If you train in your garage, then over the hot months you will need to wake up earlier and do your training when the temperature is manageable. Stay properly hydrated and also listen to your body. If you need to rest a bit more in between sets due to the heat, then feel free to do so.

10. If training alone in a garage be very aware of your capabilities & surroundings.
When training alone in your garage it is more imperative than ever that you know what your capabilities are and that you be aware of your surroundings (refer to item #7). For instance if you have done 225lbs on the bench for 10 reps many times and know that is the best you can do, do not attempt to try an 11th rep unless you are absolutely positively sure that you can lift that weight or unless you are working out inside a squat rack with the side pins properly positioned to protect you.

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Anybody who has been practicing natural bodybuilding for a while knows the importance that joints have in ones ability to keep training hard. If joints are not operating at their peak, the ability to lift heavy weights and perform certain bodybuilding exercises becomes limited. For instance, for an exercise like the bench press you need healthy shoulders, elbows and wrists. If any of these becomes badly damaged, then there goes your ability to bench press and the quality of your upper body workouts suffers as well.

Why Do Joint Injuries Occur?

For us bodybuilders there can be several causes for a joint injury. That’s the bad news. The good news however, is that for the most part, we can avoid these by using the right training, nutrition, supplementation and rest/recovery tactics.

1. Excessive use of weight on an exercise coupled with bad lifting technique: In my personal opinion, this is one of the main reasons why so many bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts end up with injured joints. Consistently using heavy weights and bad form invariably lead to bursitis, which is the inflammation of the bursae; small fluid filled sacks whose job is to reduce friction in the joint. Elbows and shoulders are often afflicted by this condition so all of you bench press kings please pay attention to this, as it is hard to bench with bad shoulders and elbows. Bad lifting technique too also causes tears on the tendons which can lead to tendonitis. Assuming that the lifting technique is really horrible and there is way too much weight being used as well, then this can lead to total misalignment of the joint as well.
2. Muscle strength that increases too quickly: Certain supplements, like creatine and nitric oxide boosters for instance, can cause our muscle strength to skyrocket. While that is a great thing, in these cases, it is of utmost importance that we slowly control the rate at which we add weight to the exercises. Even if more weight can be put on the bar, it is best to oft for doing more repetitions instead. The reason for this is because muscle strength increases much quicker than joint strength. So increasing the training load too soon can easily lead to a joint injury even if the form practiced is impeccable and if the muscles can easily handle the load. This is a situation that is also very often encountered by teenagers as teens’ muscle strength quickly rises due to all the anabolic hormones been produced by the body at that age. Trust me when I say, I am well familiarized with this cause for joint injuries.
3. Lack of proper nutrition: Joints, just like muscles, require nutrition and rest. Lack of the right nutrients diminishes the body’s ability to adapt to stress. As a result, if one continues to train with poor nutrition micro tears can start occurring in the tendons as well as a deterioration of the cartilage in the joint, which will lead to more wear and tear of the joint than normal. Chronically low levels of nutrients coupled with hard training will then invariably lead to conditions like osteoarthritis (the more common form of arthritis encountered by weight lifters caused by cartilage becoming rough and thus causing more friction at the joint) and tendonitis, which we briefly discussed above, and is the inflammation of tendons due to accumulated trauma.
4. Lack of proper rest/recovery: Consistently overtraining, lack of periodization (meaning that you always train heavy), and lack of sleep all lead to joint problems. Too much training and/or consistently training at 6 repetitions or less will cause too much trauma in the joint that will accumulate over time and result in either osteoarthritis, bursitis, tendonitis or even a full tear. Keep in mind that if the body cannot recover completely, some of the trauma caused at each training session will remain and over time accumulate. Periodization of training and full body part recovery is essential to preventing this micro trauma from accumulating. Also, lack of sufficient sleep will result in poor recovery as it is during sleep that the body produces all anabolic hormones that will be delivering the nutrients to the right places for full recovery. So sleep deprivation leads to depressed hormonal production which at the end of the day, affects your recovery.

Now that we know the common causes of joint problems, here are some guidelines on what you can do to prevent them:

Natural Bodybuilding Training Guidelines

• Use The Right Training Routine: a well periodized routine that alternates between periods of higher volume/higher repetition (10-15 reps) work with periods of lower repetition/heavier weights (5-8 reps) will work best. Active recovery phases where training volume is dramatically reduced should also be incorporated. The training routine should not be more than 60 minutes long and frequency of body part training will depend upon individual recovery. Generally, teens and those in their twenties can train a bodypart every 48-72 hours (so twice a week). Thirty year olds and those in their fourties benefit more from once every four to five days. Fifty year old and older, once every six to seven days.
• Use Proper Warm-Ups: warming up is extremely important, and it becomes more important as we age. While in my opinion, we only need to thoroughly warm up for the first exercise of a body part, not doing so puts you at the risk for injury. To properly warm up, if you know you will be doing 225-lbs on the incline bench for 10 repetitions, the first set I would just do 135-lbs for ten controlled slow repetitions. Then I would increase the weight to 185 for ten reps and only after that second set I would go up to 225-lbs and that would be my first work set. However, if working out on a cold climate, besides wearing warm clothing, I may ride a stationary bike first for 6-10 minutes, not in search of aerobic conditioning but with the goal of increasing my core body temperature. Alternatively I’ve also used abdominal training as a way to increase my core body temperature as well.
• Perform The Right Exercise Techniques With The Proper Weight: Proper execution of exercise and proper lifting speed is crucial. The exercise form should never be sacrificed in the name of adding weight. Nothing good has ever come out of that combination. In addition jerking the weight up and down not only affects how much the muscle is actually stimulated (so your muscle building results will be less) but puts much of the stress on the joints leading to unnecessary micro-trauma. So always choose a weight that allows for full control of the weight and a lifting speed that is steady and controlled on the way up and slower on the way down. Contracting the muscles at the top position also helps to provide maximum stimulation without unnecessarily having to use super heavy weights.
• Ensure Rotator Cuff Health: One of the most common injuries in weight training is that of the rotator cuff. The reason for this is that as the shoulder muscle gets stronger, the rotator cuff gets weaker unless you train it directly with 3 sets of 15-20 repetitions of rotator cuff exercises. Some external rotations at the end of your chest or back workout will do the trick.

Natural Bodybuilding Nutrition Guidelines

• Having The Right Diet With Sufficient Amounts of EFAs: A balanced diet made up of 40-50% complex carbs, 40-30% lean proteins and 20% good fats with multiple small meals spaced out 2-3 hours throughout the day will prevent poor recovery due to lack of good nutrients. Of utmost importance is not to disregard the intake of good fats, emphasizing the fish and flax oils which are high on the Omega 3 essential fatty acids (EFAs). Turns out that these fats play a huge role in anti-inflammation and also on hormonal production. Another good way to get these fats is through a serving of wild atlantic salmon a day or mackerel.
• Sufficient Calories Even When Dieting: Many people cut their calories too low when embarking on a fat loss phase. This leads to loss of bone mass and also poor joint health. Therefore, when dieting, keep in mind that only a slight caloric deficit is required in order to lose body fat; in the order of 300 calories less than one burns every day or so.

Natural Bodybuilding Supplementation Guidelines

• Take Your Multiple Vitamins/Minerals: Many trainees do not realize the importance of taking these micronutrients. However, these are essential to insure that your body will operate at maximum efficiency. Vitamins are organic compounds (produced by both animals and vegetables) whose function is to enhance the actions of proteins that cause chemical reactions such as muscle building, fat burning and energy production. Minerals are inorganic compounds (not produced by either animals or vegetables). Their main function is to make sure that your brain receives the correct signals from the body, balance of fluids, muscular contractions and energy production as well as for the building of muscle and bones. Therefore, on a very simplistic level, without vitamins and minerals it is impossible to covert the food that we eat into hormones, tissues and energy. So as a result, joint health, amongst many other things, will suffer.
• Take Extra Vitamin C: Some research indicates that increased consumption of Vitamin C lowers cortisol (catabolic hormone) levels and improves joint health as Vitamin C is required for connective tissue formation. 2-3 grams of this vitamin split in 1 gram doses at different times of the day will do the trick.
• Gelatin: Believe it or not, gelatin is a source of two very important amino acids that are required for collagen formation: glycine and praline. Several studies (Adem et. al. Therapiewoche, 1991) have shown gelatin providing improvements by reducing joint pain and improving cartilage health.
• Glucosamine/Chondroitin Combination: In a recent review of clinical trials on glucosamine and chondroitin, researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, in Cleveland, Ohio found that of 13 studies reviewed, all were classified as demonstrating positive results. The dosages used in the studies were 1500mg of glucosamine sulfate and 1200mg of chondroitin sulfate.
• MSM: At the Oregon Health Sciences Center in 1997, researchers showed that MSM provided relief equal to a popular non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. MSM expert and medical reviewer for the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Stanley W. Jacob, M.D., suggests that MSM actually blocks pain signals from traveling along a network of C fibers from the site of damaged tissue to the brain. MSM also appears to reduce inflammation, enhance blood flow, and reduce painful muscle spasms.
• Essential Fats: As stated on the nutrition tips, if you do not consume wild atlantic salmon or mackerel, it is suggested then that you supplement your diet with 1-2 tablespoons of fish oils and/or flaxseed oil in order to get the very important essential fatty acids that your body needs. Carlson fish oils and spectrum flaxseed oil are great products to get these fats from.  Another great product to get your EFAs from is Labrada Nutrition’s EFA Lean Capsules.

Note: A good and convenient product that contains Vitamin C, Gelatin, Glucosamin, Chondroitin and MSM at the right dosages in a good tasting drink is called ElastiJoint® by Labrada Nutrition.

Rest/Recovery Guidelines

Use Periodization And Provide Enough Rest Prior To Training A Bodypart Again: As mentioned in the training guidelines, periodization and the right amount of time before training a body part again are of utmost importance to joint health and recuperation. Overtraining leads to overuse injuries.Get Your 8 Hours Of Sleep Each Night: Sleep deprivation leads to depressed hormonal production which at the end of the day affects your recovery and prevents full recuperation from training. So make sure that you get your ZZZZZsss.

Advice For Youngsters On The Importance Of Joint Health

For those of you starting out in your teens just like I did, please start following the advice presented in this article. While it does not seem important, any joint injuries at that age will remain with you for the rest of your life and any little thing that you do will aggravate them as you get older. In addition, because your strength will increase at an incredible accelerated rate at this age, be sure to increase repetitions before deciding to increase the weight on an exercise in order to protect your joints. Keep in mind that your muscles will always grow quicker than your joints.

Only when you can easily perform 15 repetitions for an exercise for all sets then should you consider slightly increasing the weight. Because your anabolic hormones are at an all time high, you will achieve great results anyways.

Conclusion

I guarantee you that if you follow all of the guidelines in this article you will greatly minimize your chances of a joint injury and as a result will have great pain free workouts for many years to come.

However, if you feel pain every time you hit those weights, my advice is to try exercises that do not trigger such pain and that you visit a good doctor who can get to the cause of the pain and who refers you to a good physical therapist to start working with you on fixing it. In this case, it is more crucial than ever that you adhere to all the guidelines presented here and that you consume your nutritional supplements on a daily basis.

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1. Avoid activities that involve deep concentration or high physical exertion.

These activities will increase adrenaline levels and will prevent your body and brain from achieving the state of relaxation required to achieve sleep. Therefore, try to manage your time in such a way that your deep concentration activities as well as exercise are finalized no closer than 2 hours before going to bed.

2. Avoid watching disturbing shows at night on TV.

This may also increase your adrenaline levels thereby preventing you from a good night’s sleep. In addition, these sort of shows may also prompt your brain to start thinking and analazing, thus preventing you from achieving a relaxed state.

3. Avoid eating a large meal at night.

Since having a large meal requires time to digest, this will also prevent you from falling asleep. In addition, laying down in bed immediately after a big meal interferes with the digetion process, so you not only will not get to fall asleep on time, but you won’t be able to digest the food as you should either.

4. Attempt to totally relax at the same time each night.

By doing so you condition the body to relax itself once the specific time that you choose comes every day. Ensure that at this time no thoughts other than relaxation and falling asleep come to your head. You need to really learn how to block all thoughts concerning work or other life issues that may be trying to get in your head. Listening to soothing music set at a low volume with the lights off can help you relax and achieve the state necessary to go to sleep.

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When we deprive ourselves of sleep, there is a delicate cycle that we disrupt. Let me now share with you that cycle:

Phase One: Phase one begins as soon as the sun sets, when the pineal gland starts to release melatonin, a hormone released in the absence of light and responsible for making us sleepy. When you lay down in your bed at this time, your muscles relax, heart rate and breathing slow down, and body temperature drops. The brain also relaxes but still remains alert. If you could look at the wave patterns being generated by the brain, you would see a change from the rapid beta waves of daytime to slower alpha waves. When the alpha waves disappear, replaced by theta waves, the sleeper has tumbled into the sensory void called stage one sleep. In this stage, the sleeper is unable to sense anything.

Phase Two: Phase two occurs a moment after phase one and in this stage the sleeper lays still for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Phase Three: After Phase two is over, the sleeper falls into a deeper sleep. During this stage, the sleeper falls deeper into phase three which lasts about 5 to 15 minutes.

Phase Four: With a maximum of 15 minutes spent within the phase three cycle, the sleeper then falls into yet another relaxed stage called phase four, lasting a half hour or so. In stage four, the eyes move back and forth very quickly in what’s called rapid eye movement, or REM. This is the point at which the first dream occurs. After this dream has ended, the sleeper then goes right back to phase two and starts the whole process over again. These processes repeat themselves about five times during the night.

Sleeping Requirements

Sleep research indicates through studies that the average sleeper will sleep approximately 8 hours and fifteen minutes when uninterrupted. During this research, there were no alarm clocks or disturbing noises to interrupt normal sleep patterns. 8 hours and fifteen minutes is believed to be the ideal physiological amount of time that the body requires for proper sleep time.

What Happens If You Do Not Get Enough Sleep?

There are many detrimental effects that occur when you consistently do not getting sufficient sleep;  besides the fact that your ability to gain muscle and lose fat will be compromised (as cortisol levels skyrocket and testosterone/GH levels decrease),

1. Impaired glucose tolerance.

Without sleep, the central nervous system becomes more active, something that inhibits the pancreas from producing adequate insulin, the hormone the body needs to digest glucose. “In healthy young men with no risk factor, in one week, we had them in a pre-diabetic state,” says researcher Van Cauter when referring to a study that he conducted on the effects of sleep deprivation.

2. Possible link to obesity.

Growth hormone (GH) is secreted during the first round of deep sleep. As both men and women age, they naturally spend less time in deep sleep, which lowers GH secretion. Lack of sleep at a younger age, however, could drive down GH prematurely, accelerating as a result the fat-gaining process. In addition, there is also research that indicates a lowering of the hormone testosterone as well, something that would also make the gaining of fat and the loss of muscle and easy thing for the body to do.

3. Increased carbohydrate cravings.

This is due to the fact that sleep deprivation negatively affects the production of a hormone called Leptin. This hormone is responsible for telling the body when it is full. However, with decreased production of this hormone, your body will crave calories (especially in the forms of carbs) even though its requirements have been met. Not a good situation to be in for a dieter.

4. Weakened immune system.

Research indicates that sleep deprivation affects adversely the white blood cell count in humans as well as the body’s ability to fight infections.

5. Increased risk of getting breast cancer.

Richard Stevens, a cancer researcher at the University of Connecticut, has speculated that there might be a connection between breast cancer and hormone cycles disrupted by late-night light. Melatonin, primarily secreted at night, may trigger a reduction in the body’s production of estrogen. But light interferes with melatonin release (since melatonin is secreted in response to a lack of light), allowing estrogen levels to rise. Too much estrogen is known to promote the growth of breast cancers.

6. Decreased alertness and ability to focus.

A recent study showed that people who were awake for up to 19 hours scored worse on performance tests and alertness scales than those with a blood-alcohol level of .08 percent–legally drunk in some states. Also, this can lead to injury in the weight room since lack of alertness can cause you to neglect securing a machine correctly or even lose balance as you perform an exercise.

7. Hardening of the arteries.

Stress imposed on the body due to lack of sleep causes such a very sharp rise in cortisol levels. Such an imbalance can lead to hardening of the arteries, something that can cause a heart attack. In addition, we also know that very high cortisol levels lead to muscle loss, increased fat storage, loss of bone mass, cause depression, cause hypertension, cause insulin resistance (the cells in the body lose the ability to accept insulin), and lower growth hormone and testosterone production.

8. Depression and irritability.

Lack of sleep also causes depletion of neurotransmitters in the brain that are in charge of regulating mood. Because of this, sleep deprived people have a “shorter fuse” and also tend to get depressed more easily.

Conclusion

You need 7 – 9 hours of sleep each night in order for your body to run efficiently. Deprive your body of sleep and you’ll have lousy fat loss. As a bonus, you also get muscle loss which lowers your metabolism. The reason for this is because without enough sleep the body stops producing anabolic hormones (Muscle Producing/Fat Burning Hormones; e.g. Testosterone and Growth hormone) and starts increasing the production of catabolic hormones (Muscle Destroying/Fat Depositing Hormones e.g. Cortisol). Also, you will lack the energy and focus to get through your workouts and it will also lead to overtraining as you won’t be able to recover anymore. To top it off, there is research that indicates that a lack of sleep creates cravings and binges in addition to hardening of the arteries which leads to heart attacks. If you don’t think that you have enough time to sleep, then turn off the TV and make the time.

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Nothing can bring a bodybuilder’s progress to a halt more than when you are sick. I am often asked the question: “Should I continue performing my bodybuilding training routines while I am sick?” The answer to that question really depends on what you mean by sick. Is it a cold? The flu? Allergies? Most people confuse the common cold for the flu. However, these are different types of illnesses. The flu is caused by viruses known as Influenza A or Influenza B, while the common cold is caused by viruses called coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. There are over 200 different types of coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. If one of them hits you, your immune system builds a lifelong immunity to it (therefore, the same virus will never hit you twice).

However, you have the rest of the viruses that have not yet affected you to worry about; and there are enough to last a lifetime.

The flu, as you may already know, is much more severe as it is usually accompanied by an array of body aches and fever. Therefore, your body’s immune system is taxed much more by the flu than by the common cold. At this time, bodybuilding training would not only be detrimental to muscle growth, but it would also to your health as well. Remember that while training can help us gain muscle, lose fat, feel good and energetic, it is still a catabolic activity. The body needs to be in good health in order to go from the catabolic state caused by the exercise to an anabolic state of recuperation and muscle growth. So if you have the flu, your body is already fighting a catabolic state caused by the Influenza virus. In this case, weight training would only add more catabolism, which in turn would negatively affect the efficacy of the immune system against the virus, causing you to get sicker. Therefore, absolutely no training if you have the flu. Instead, concentrate on very good nutrition and on drinking large amounts of fluids (water and electrolyte replacement drinks like Gatorade in order to prevent dehydration). Once the flu completely runs its course, you can slowly start up back on your weight training program with lighter weights and not going to failure. Don’t push yourself too hard during this first week. The next week you’ll repeat what you did on the previous week again, but pushing yourself a bit closer to muscular failure. By the third week of your program you should be back on track.

If it is the common cold that is hitting you and the particular virus is mild (you know that it is mild when your symptoms are just a runny nose and slight coughing), you may get away with training as long as you stop the sets short of reaching muscular failure and you decrease the weights poundages by 25 percent (divide the weights that you usually use by 4 and that will give you the amount of weight that you need to take off the bar) in order to prevent you from pushing too hard. Again, if the cold virus is causing you to feel run down, achy, with a sore throat and headaches, it would be best to stop training all together, until the symptoms subside. If this is the case, just follow the exercise program start-up recommendations described above for after the flu. Remember that we do not want to make it any harder for the immune system to fight the virus by introducing more catabolic activity, so intense training is out during that time.

If your ailment is something other than the common cold or the flu, consult your doctor.

Now that we have seen how a flu or a cold can throw a wrench into your progress, lets see how we can prevent these buggers from affecting us during the flu season or during any other season for that matter.

Sickness Prevention

While it is still unknown why the cold and flu season generally comes during the winter months, it is known that you have to let the virus into your system in order for it to affect you. Therefore, it is only logical that we implement a two-fold prevention approach:

Prevent the virus from infiltrating your system. Keeping in mind that cold viruses spread by human contact, that they get into your system through the mouth, eyes and nose, and that they can remain active for up to three hours, you can accomplish this by doing the following:

1. Keep your hands away from your face

2. Wash your hands with anti bacterial soap frequently throughout the day (especially as soon as you finish your workout at the gym).

Maintain immune system operation at peak efficiency levels at all times. Remembering that excessive exercise, a bad diet, and losing sleep are all catabolic activities, do the following:

1. Avoid overtraining by using the principles advocated in the Characteristics of Good Weight Training Routines article.

2. Maintain a balanced diet as described in the Nutrition Basics article and avoid processed foods that contain high levels of saturated fats, refined flours or sugar since these types of foods lower the immune system function.

3. Get a healthy dose of sleep a day (anywhere from 7 to 9 hours depending on your individual requirements).

So remember, stay healthy by following the tips above, and if you get sick, then “don’t beat a tired horse” as former Mr. Olympia Lee Haney used to say. Rest until you get better! If you don’t you will end up more seriously ill and this will take you out of the gym for a longer period of time.

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There are various types of soreness that you need to be aware of.  The key thing is to be able to distinguish between good muscle soreness, which is the one that indicates you had a good workout, and injury type soreness.  For learning how to differentiate between soreness types, please take a look at my Types of Muscle Soreness article, where not only will you learn about the different types of muscle soreness, but also how to minimize them.

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