July 2, 2025 • 21 mins
OVERVIEW
Getting sick sucks, any time of year. When athletes are in the middle of the season, like they are now, they get anxious about losing fitness and they get impatient about returning to training. In Episode 255 of "The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast", Coach Adam Pulford details the practical steps he uses to guide athletes back to training following common illnesses like cold and flu. Note: Adam is not a physician and this is not medical advice. His guidance is based on standard cold/flu treatment recommendations and practical experience working with athletes as they return to training.
TOPICS COVERED
- Identifying the type of illness
- Using "The Neck Rule" to determine next steps
- Training recommendations if symptoms are above the neck
- Training recommendations if symptoms are below the neck
- When to reintroduce intensity
- Will you lose fitness?
- What does a "sick week training schedule" look like?
- How to know you're ready to resume normal training
LINKS/RESOURCES
- Seasonal Flu and Colds - Child Care Aware® of America
- Common Cold (Rhinovirus): Symptoms, Cold vs. Flu, Treatment
- The Stages of the Flu: Timeline and Recovery - GoodRx
ASK A QUESTION FOR A FUTURE PODCAST
HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance even if
you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
Getting sick sucks and I don'tknow any athlete who would argue
(00:52):
against that.
Cold and flu season is behindus as I'm recording this episode
just before the 4th of July,but anyone can get sick anytime,
and a common thing I deal withis helping my athletes decide
when it's time to resume regulartraining after getting sick.
We've got good questions aboutthat coming from you, one of our
(01:13):
audience members, today, solet's read the original question
and dive into some short,actionable advice, and I'll give
you some examples as we go.
So here is that originalquestion examples as we go.
So here is that originalquestion.
Hi coach, I really enjoy yourpodcast, especially the fact
(01:33):
that you get straight to thepoint for us time crunched media
consumers who have too manypodcasts queued up with too
little time.
I have some questions around.
Coming back from illness.
I recently caught a bug from mykids in the middle of a
training block, with flu likesymptoms, and I took a few days
off to recover.
When I got back on the bike Istarted.
I recently caught a bug from mykids in the middle of a
training block, with flu-likesymptoms, and I took a few days
off to recover.
When I got back on the bike, Istarted with several easy zone
one to two rides to ease backinto training before introducing
more moderate intensity.
(01:54):
But after that moderateintensity session the symptoms
came back and I had to takeanother few days off.
So I'm starting all over again.
My questions are number one arethere things that we can do to
avoid losing fitness while ill,such as walking, stretching, et
cetera?
Two how do we know when we'verecovered enough to get back to
(02:16):
training?
Number three what's the rightapproach to ease back into
training after recovery?
And four how much and what typeof fitness is lost during an
illness?
Thanks, eddie.
All right, so there's a lot ofquestions there.
I will do my best to hit on allof them, but a couple
disclaimers here before we getgoing.
(02:37):
First of all, I am not a doctor.
I'm not a medical doctor, sothis is not medical advice.
If you are severely sick, gosee your doctor.
I cannot provide you advice onthat.
As a coach, I can walk youthrough some of the typical
situations I've seen to work inregard to coming back to
training and speak to some ofEddie's specific questions here.
(02:59):
Now, I mean always use yourbest judgment when making
decisions regarding your healthcoming back from illness, and I
would say the more conservativeapproach is better than the more
aggressive approach.
And really what this means isbeing slower to hit that high
intensity after getting sick, soeasy aerobic rides first and
(03:19):
then gradually build into itPretty similar to what Eddie did
, but with a few other datapoints around it, and I'll
provide that here as we go.
Now I'll speak today to cold andflu-like illnesses some of the
more common stuff out there.
But if it's more persistent,again you want to seek medical
advice and that's beyond myscope as a coach.
(03:40):
So let's get into a few answersand some advice.
First, identify the type andseverity of the illness.
If you're sick, admit thatyou're sick and take a rest day
or two or more.
This rest period is wise, nomatter the type of sickness, and
(04:02):
it will not kill your training.
It will help you healpotentially faster than if you
try to stick to some trainingplan that you're already in.
Now, no matter if it's cold orflu, if it's a virus, you'll
usually be the sickest at thefront end of this thing.
So your body's working itshardest to produce antibodies
and fight the illness to gethealthy again.
(04:23):
So resting and not stressingfrom exercise is key.
A couple of things here.
So the common cold incubationperiod is about two or three
days.
Then you'll typically will havesymptoms for seven to 10 days,
starting to feel better afterdays eight, nine and 10.
That's the most predictablekind of time period um available
(04:45):
out there.
The flu has an incubationperiod of one to four days, so
it can hit harder for somepeople or sooner for some people
.
Now symptoms will last seven to10 days.
Again, it's a virus, uh, but itcan linger up to 14 days and it
can linger even longer.
I've seen in my athletes whobasically just come back to
intensity too soon and they havethat like symptom rebound.
(05:07):
So if it is a virus like that,you'll have to just admit to
yourself that for the next sevento 10 days you're going to go
easy or keep it light intraining, and maybe a little bit
longer if it's the flu.
If you know it's the flu, don'tstart back too soon with
intensity, otherwise you'll getthat symptom rebound which kind
(05:28):
of like what Eddie wasexperiencing there symptoms came
back and then you have to startall over again.
So once you've kind ofidentified if it's common
illness or like more severe,okay.
If it's more of the common coldand flu stuff, use the neck rule
.
I've been using this rule forso many years and it was passed
(05:49):
down by coaches at cts and Ithink it applies for all
athletes.
Okay.
And the neck rule is simplythis if symptoms are mostly uh
like above the neck meaning youhave congestion, runny nose,
cold, doing light aerobicexercise like zone one and two
and some light strength trainingthat's okay.
(06:10):
But if the symptoms are in yourneck or below meaning into your
lungs, you're coughing, youhave chest congestion, body
aches, fever, gi issues then Isuggest more rest and not
training until all that clearsup Again.
Your body is just working sohard when it's below the neck
for any training to be positivefor any adaptation or gain, so
(06:34):
you're better off resting Now.
Second, once you've taken a fewrest days and you're using the
neck rule, you want to startback with short, easy spins.
I'll include some examples ofthis here pretty soon, but we're
talking about super light rides, zone one to two.
You know this is like below 50%of FTP, so it is really light
in intensity and we're onlygoing to do 30 to 60 minutes at
(06:57):
most for time crunched athletes.
What I find there is this willmaintain some of the adaptations
that we have in aerobic riding,some of the feel on the bike
and keep the legs feeling okayand also just like for your head
.
I think for a lot of us thatare training regularly.
You know, four or five, sixdays a week, coming back to some
(07:18):
movement and controlling theintensity is really good for our
mental health and so that's howwe do the cycling component of
that and again, if it's neck andabove and there's no muscle or
body aches, keep the intensitylow on the bike.
But you can also incorporatestrength training back into the
mix.
But you'll want to bring theweight down.
You want to bring sets and repsdown.
So bring down the load, bringdown the intensity.
(07:40):
However, you want to thinkabout quantifying that.
Whatever you're doing before,knock about 20% or 30% off the
top and that'll be a good thing.
Now this can definitely helpmaintain gains in the gym.
So muscle strength and musclecoordination so that when you
come back to normal training onboth the bike and the gym, you
(08:01):
will lose less.
Now, when you're sick withairway stuff, even with a head
cold, I sometimes find thatdoing strength training hurts my
athletes less because you'renot stressing the aerobic in the
central system.
You're just like not trying tojam all that airway in.
That's already like clogged.
So if we're doing like two tothree sessions in the gym on a
(08:25):
regular basis, maybe four orfive sessions per week on the
bike, I will likely decreasetotal sessions on the bike due
to that congestion and so thebody can heal.
But I will keep two to threetimes per week in the gym.
I will keep that going and thatdefinitely helps maintain the
gains that we've made over time.
And so you're maintainingaerobic gains on the bike with
(08:48):
some light spins a couple oftimes a week and you're
maintaining aerobic gains on thebike with some light spins a
couple times a week and you'remaintaining strength in the gym
with two to three times ofstrength training per week Now.
Third, my advice is startintensity later than you think
you should.
So my best advice here is don'tgo too hard, too soon.
And too hard means thresholdwork and above, and you want to
(09:11):
wait at least a week, if notlonger, before testing that.
This is because the intensityseems to be the key stressor
that could cause the symptomrebound.
When your body is spending allof its energy healing, that
extra stress coming fromexercise will be seen as too
much and it will dilute thealready diluted energy for
(09:35):
healing.
Keep in mind forming adaptationfrom stress is a healing process
, just in a normative state whenyou're not sick.
So when you stress, then rest,you heal.
You're forming an adaptationfrom your intervals, from your
strength training, from heat,whatever it is, kind of.
In that normative setting youonly have so much bandwidth for
(09:56):
this healing process to occur.
So keep stress low when you'resick and you will heal sooner.
Also, the longer I coach, thelonger I stretch this out for my
athletes, meaning the longer Iwait to hit intensity.
That's because I've messed itup in the past.
I think as coaches as well asathletes, we just want to come
(10:17):
back to regularity soon becausewe don't want to lose anything,
but really is the thing that canset you back more than anything
.
So in Eddie's case, again, thatmoderate intensity you know for
for you and I would have fallenthat followed that path, eddie,
that you described.
But that moderate intensity waseither too intense or too soon,
(10:39):
so you had the symptom rebound.
It's never fun, but it happens,and sometimes you just have to
roll the dice and try to seewhat works for you.
And my best advice here for you, eddie, in particular, is you
know, now you have kind of oneway of testing to see how your
body responded, in a flu likesort of manner.
(11:00):
So now use my advice here andgo longer before you hit
intensity again.
And as you go longer, seven oreven 10 days of just light work
and maybe some strength training, not going too deep, not going
too hard, maybe it's 10 daysdown the road, something like
that my best advice is theadvice that I give to my
athletes, which is wait untilyou feel good, right or normal
(11:24):
and then wait another day andthen on day three, if you feel
good and normal again withoutdoing hard intensity, now you
are ready to go.
So it's kind of like and I'llget into an example week coming
up, but it's like drop intensity, drop volume, drop training,
stress, keep some light strengthtraining in the mix, keep some
(11:44):
light spins going and thenproceed going forward until you
start to feel good and then runthat out for two or three days.
Then, if everything is good,come back to normal training.
And a couple of reminders herethe time course of these viruses
are generally around seven to10 days and there's not much you
can do to speed that up.
(12:05):
But you can delay it, meaning,you know, make that longer by
not resting or stressingyourself so that the body can't
heal as fast.
So you're in for at least 10days.
Why would you make it anylonger?
Also, let's go back to one of mypodcasts I did on detraining.
This is when you're not sickbut you're transitioning.
(12:26):
You just had a training seasonand you're transitioning to the
off season and so you want tobring training down or detrain
for two to three weeks to offseta bunch of stress that's built
up over the year.
So the research and everythingthat I talked about, as well as
my observations and working withmy athletes, suggests that you
can do basically nothing or lowintensity for definitely two
(12:49):
weeks with limited performancedecrements Okay, and you should
bring that like.
That should give you confidencethat you can take a couple of
weeks off and you're not goingto lose much.
And you can take a couple ofweeks off if you are sick and
know that your loss will be lessbecause you let your body heal.
(13:10):
Okay.
Now, after three or four weeks,now the VO2 max starts to come
down, you'll lose a little biton threshold but the aerobic
base.
If you had good momentum formonths and months, you can take
a couple of weeks off and it'snot going to hurt you that much.
Okay.
So don't stress about how muchcan I do during my sickness and
(13:31):
illness.
That will you know.
Maintain this or that orsomething.
The key thing is heal first.
Then the second thing is onceyou know, using that neck rule,
if it's just a head cold or aflu, now you can adjust the
intensity and start making somedecisions on what you're going
(13:51):
to maintain and what you let goaway.
You can maintain some of thesesystems throughout this sickness
time period versus just layingon the couch.
Let's discuss what some examplesare of having a sick week for a
time crunched athlete.
I'll give you a typical weekwith a head cold, starting with
the incubation time period andsome common comments that I'll
(14:14):
see on training peaks or on textmessage from my athletes.
So let's just start with, likeSaturday I'll get a text message
or comment on training peaksthat says am I sick?
And they'll do their traininganyway.
And let's just say it's theweekend and I didn't see it
right, or they didn't text me,or something like that Sunday I
might be sick, monday I'm sick.
(14:36):
And then I'll say, okay,definitely rest day, right.
Tuesday.
Rest day Wednesday head coldconfirmed 30 to 45 minute light
spin or walk, optional.
Or just take another rest dayThursday 30 to 45 minute light
spin or walk again if symptomsare not worsening.
But if symptoms are worsening,take a rest day, okay.
(14:57):
So you can see that there's anincubation time period of a
couple of days where it's like,oh, I have some symptoms but I'm
not sick yet.
Okay, but now I'm definitelysick.
Okay, rest, rest.
Start with some light stuff.
If light stuff is okay, proceedif you have a head cold and
it's not that severe.
So now we're on Friday.
Start to incorporate strengthtraining, and that Friday is
(15:21):
only one, two, three, four, fourdays.
After saying I am sick and I'vetaken a couple of rest days, you
can come back to the gymbecause it's not stressing that
central system as much.
You want to use your head again, decrease the weight, decrease
the load, but proceed withstrength training.
Saturday maybe you do an easyspin for 60 minutes.
Sunday, strength training.
Again Monday 60 minutesendurance, maybe some core work.
(15:43):
Tuesday, strength training.
At this point we are rightaround 10 days from admitting I
am sick, I've taken rest days,I've gone pretty easy, I've
incorporated some light strengthtraining in the mix and we're
on day 10.
That day 10, maybe two by eightminutes or three by eight
(16:03):
minutes of low threshold work,meaning right around 85 to 90%
of FTP with four to six minuterecovery in between, maybe 60
minute total ride time.
That's a good test workoutbecause it's not super stressful
in total time and zone.
It's not super stressful interms of intensity and if that
(16:28):
feels good, especially duringthe first interval, proceed.
If it feels bad, just stop theworkout altogether.
Get through that session ifeverything's feeling fine, and
then on the next day so ThursdayI would rest or take a recovery
spin or something light and youwant to monitor and see if
symptoms are not worsening.
If they don't have a symptom,rebound or something like this,
(16:49):
and if that's good to go andyou're feeling normal, proceed
on with an endurance day andthen resume regular training
after that.
So that's a pretty good exampleand you can rewind and listen
to that again.
But essentially what I'm doingis I'm taking what we know to be
the time course of theseviruses and I'm taking examples
from real life of how I see itaffect my athletes and we're
(17:13):
combining both data and feelingsto get to a plan that logically
works most of the time.
Okay.
But I will say this listen toyour body and know what the
healing rate is for you as anindividual, because it can be
different for different athletes.
(17:35):
It can be different foreverybody, okay.
So some, some of the athletes,heal faster than others, and
this could be because you'reyounger, but not always.
If your recovery habits aredialed and you are in control of
your work schedule and canminimize stress during times of
being sick or during times ofheavy training.
Then you will heal and adaptfaster, and I have some athletes
(17:58):
in their 40s and 50s that healand adapt very quickly for those
reasons.
But if you're a typical timecrunched athlete with a family,
demanding job, not a ton ofcontrol over their work schedule
, the advice that I gave heretoday should hit well.
You may even need to take a fewextra rest days and be more
conservative if you don't havethat control over your life, but
(18:20):
just know that if you take restearlier and you have a more
conservative approach, you willget through the illness quicker
and then you can resume trainingmore quickly.
When in doubt, rest it out.
Know that the time course ofadaptation or physiological
decay that I've gone over in thepodcast of detraining is
(18:42):
normally saying that you can dotwo weeks, if not much, and you
will have minimal decay ofperformance.
Okay.
So just really know that.
Let that sink in and that willgive you confidence as you head
into your rest plan when you'regetting sick.
So in summary, let's recap someof the key takeaways from today.
(19:05):
If you're sick, admit that youare sick and take a few rest
days to start the healingprocess properly.
Use the neck rule to guide yourdecision-making on if you start
in with light aerobic workfirst or take a few more rest
days because the symptoms arebelow the neck, meaning that it
is worse than a head cold.
Plan on not doing anythingharder than zone one or two for
(19:27):
the next seven to 10 days,weaving in a rest day here and
there and knowing that you'renot training but you're
maintaining during this time.
You can incorporate strengthtraining if symptoms remain
above the neck and not worsening.
But be sure to decrease load inthe gym by decreasing weight
sets and reps and using yourcommon sense.
In the end, if you are moreconservative and have a plan
(19:50):
that you can see the light atthe end of the tunnel and resume
training sooner with no symptomrebounds, you'll be back to
pursuing your season goals witha clean bill of health much
sooner.
So that's it.
That's our show for today.
Thank you to Eddie for thequestion.
I was a little nervous,actually in providing advice for
(20:11):
this podcast as I'm no doctor,but in talking with other
coaches as well as my editor, wethought that it was best to
give the in the field sort ofadvice, because nearly every
athlete on the planet deals withthis same scenario.
So best of luck to you, eddie,and I hope this helps if you get
down the road and if you getsick again.
So now, if you have it for allthe rest of the audience members
(20:34):
out there, if you have a goodquestion like this, feel free to
write into us at train rightcombackslash podcast and click on
ask a training question.
Those get set directly to meand I'll do my best to answer it
on a future episode.
We'll see you back here nextweek for more short, actionable
training advice, and don'tforget to tell a friend or
training partner about us.
(20:54):
Thanks again for listening.
I appreciate each and every oneof you.
Thanks for joining us on thetime crunch cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
(21:17):
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
From the team at CTS.
This is the Time Crunch Cyclistpodcast, our show dedicated to
answering your trainingquestions and providing
actionable advice to help youimprove your performance even if
you're strapped for time.
I'm your host, coach AdamPulford, and I'm one of the over
50 professional coaches whomake up the team at CTS.
In each episode, I draw on ourteam's collective knowledge,
(00:30):
other coaches and experts in thefield to provide you with the
practical ways to get the mostout of your training and
ultimately become the bestcyclist that you can be.
Now on to our show.
Now onto our show.
Getting sick sucks and I don'tknow any athlete who would argue
(00:52):
against that.
Cold and flu season is behindus as I'm recording this episode
just before the 4th of July,but anyone can get sick anytime,
and a common thing I deal withis helping my athletes decide
when it's time to resume regulartraining after getting sick.
We've got good questions aboutthat coming from you, one of our
(01:13):
audience members, today, solet's read the original question
and dive into some short,actionable advice, and I'll give
you some examples as we go.
So here is that originalquestion examples as we go.
So here is that originalquestion.
Hi coach, I really enjoy yourpodcast, especially the fact
(01:33):
that you get straight to thepoint for us time crunched media
consumers who have too manypodcasts queued up with too
little time.
I have some questions around.
Coming back from illness.
I recently caught a bug from mykids in the middle of a
training block, with flu likesymptoms, and I took a few days
off to recover.
When I got back on the bike Istarted.
I recently caught a bug from mykids in the middle of a
training block, with flu-likesymptoms, and I took a few days
off to recover.
When I got back on the bike, Istarted with several easy zone
one to two rides to ease backinto training before introducing
more moderate intensity.
(01:54):
But after that moderateintensity session the symptoms
came back and I had to takeanother few days off.
So I'm starting all over again.
My questions are number one arethere things that we can do to
avoid losing fitness while ill,such as walking, stretching, et
cetera?
Two how do we know when we'verecovered enough to get back to
(02:16):
training?
Number three what's the rightapproach to ease back into
training after recovery?
And four how much and what typeof fitness is lost during an
illness?
Thanks, eddie.
All right, so there's a lot ofquestions there.
I will do my best to hit on allof them, but a couple
disclaimers here before we getgoing.
(02:37):
First of all, I am not a doctor.
I'm not a medical doctor, sothis is not medical advice.
If you are severely sick, gosee your doctor.
I cannot provide you advice onthat.
As a coach, I can walk youthrough some of the typical
situations I've seen to work inregard to coming back to
training and speak to some ofEddie's specific questions here.
(02:59):
Now, I mean always use yourbest judgment when making
decisions regarding your healthcoming back from illness, and I
would say the more conservativeapproach is better than the more
aggressive approach.
And really what this means isbeing slower to hit that high
intensity after getting sick, soeasy aerobic rides first and
(03:19):
then gradually build into itPretty similar to what Eddie did
, but with a few other datapoints around it, and I'll
provide that here as we go.
Now I'll speak today to cold andflu-like illnesses some of the
more common stuff out there.
But if it's more persistent,again you want to seek medical
advice and that's beyond myscope as a coach.
(03:40):
So let's get into a few answersand some advice.
First, identify the type andseverity of the illness.
If you're sick, admit thatyou're sick and take a rest day
or two or more.
This rest period is wise, nomatter the type of sickness, and
(04:02):
it will not kill your training.
It will help you healpotentially faster than if you
try to stick to some trainingplan that you're already in.
Now, no matter if it's cold orflu, if it's a virus, you'll
usually be the sickest at thefront end of this thing.
So your body's working itshardest to produce antibodies
and fight the illness to gethealthy again.
(04:23):
So resting and not stressingfrom exercise is key.
A couple of things here.
So the common cold incubationperiod is about two or three
days.
Then you'll typically will havesymptoms for seven to 10 days,
starting to feel better afterdays eight, nine and 10.
That's the most predictablekind of time period um available
(04:45):
out there.
The flu has an incubationperiod of one to four days, so
it can hit harder for somepeople or sooner for some people
.
Now symptoms will last seven to10 days.
Again, it's a virus, uh, but itcan linger up to 14 days and it
can linger even longer.
I've seen in my athletes whobasically just come back to
intensity too soon and they havethat like symptom rebound.
(05:07):
So if it is a virus like that,you'll have to just admit to
yourself that for the next sevento 10 days you're going to go
easy or keep it light intraining, and maybe a little bit
longer if it's the flu.
If you know it's the flu, don'tstart back too soon with
intensity, otherwise you'll getthat symptom rebound which kind
(05:28):
of like what Eddie wasexperiencing there symptoms came
back and then you have to startall over again.
So once you've kind ofidentified if it's common
illness or like more severe,okay.
If it's more of the common coldand flu stuff, use the neck rule
.
I've been using this rule forso many years and it was passed
(05:49):
down by coaches at cts and Ithink it applies for all
athletes.
Okay.
And the neck rule is simplythis if symptoms are mostly uh
like above the neck meaning youhave congestion, runny nose,
cold, doing light aerobicexercise like zone one and two
and some light strength trainingthat's okay.
(06:10):
But if the symptoms are in yourneck or below meaning into your
lungs, you're coughing, youhave chest congestion, body
aches, fever, gi issues then Isuggest more rest and not
training until all that clearsup Again.
Your body is just working sohard when it's below the neck
for any training to be positivefor any adaptation or gain, so
(06:34):
you're better off resting Now.
Second, once you've taken a fewrest days and you're using the
neck rule, you want to startback with short, easy spins.
I'll include some examples ofthis here pretty soon, but we're
talking about super light rides, zone one to two.
You know this is like below 50%of FTP, so it is really light
in intensity and we're onlygoing to do 30 to 60 minutes at
(06:57):
most for time crunched athletes.
What I find there is this willmaintain some of the adaptations
that we have in aerobic riding,some of the feel on the bike
and keep the legs feeling okayand also just like for your head
.
I think for a lot of us thatare training regularly.
You know, four or five, sixdays a week, coming back to some
(07:18):
movement and controlling theintensity is really good for our
mental health and so that's howwe do the cycling component of
that and again, if it's neck andabove and there's no muscle or
body aches, keep the intensitylow on the bike.
But you can also incorporatestrength training back into the
mix.
But you'll want to bring theweight down.
You want to bring sets and repsdown.
So bring down the load, bringdown the intensity.
(07:40):
However, you want to thinkabout quantifying that.
Whatever you're doing before,knock about 20% or 30% off the
top and that'll be a good thing.
Now this can definitely helpmaintain gains in the gym.
So muscle strength and musclecoordination so that when you
come back to normal training onboth the bike and the gym, you
(08:01):
will lose less.
Now, when you're sick withairway stuff, even with a head
cold, I sometimes find thatdoing strength training hurts my
athletes less because you'renot stressing the aerobic in the
central system.
You're just like not trying tojam all that airway in.
That's already like clogged.
So if we're doing like two tothree sessions in the gym on a
(08:25):
regular basis, maybe four orfive sessions per week on the
bike, I will likely decreasetotal sessions on the bike due
to that congestion and so thebody can heal.
But I will keep two to threetimes per week in the gym.
I will keep that going and thatdefinitely helps maintain the
gains that we've made over time.
And so you're maintainingaerobic gains on the bike with
(08:48):
some light spins a couple oftimes a week and you're
maintaining aerobic gains on thebike with some light spins a
couple times a week and you'remaintaining strength in the gym
with two to three times ofstrength training per week Now.
Third, my advice is startintensity later than you think
you should.
So my best advice here is don'tgo too hard, too soon.
And too hard means thresholdwork and above, and you want to
(09:11):
wait at least a week, if notlonger, before testing that.
This is because the intensityseems to be the key stressor
that could cause the symptomrebound.
When your body is spending allof its energy healing, that
extra stress coming fromexercise will be seen as too
much and it will dilute thealready diluted energy for
(09:35):
healing.
Keep in mind forming adaptationfrom stress is a healing process
, just in a normative state whenyou're not sick.
So when you stress, then rest,you heal.
You're forming an adaptationfrom your intervals, from your
strength training, from heat,whatever it is, kind of.
In that normative setting youonly have so much bandwidth for
(09:56):
this healing process to occur.
So keep stress low when you'resick and you will heal sooner.
Also, the longer I coach, thelonger I stretch this out for my
athletes, meaning the longer Iwait to hit intensity.
That's because I've messed itup in the past.
I think as coaches as well asathletes, we just want to come
(10:17):
back to regularity soon becausewe don't want to lose anything,
but really is the thing that canset you back more than anything
.
So in Eddie's case, again, thatmoderate intensity you know for
for you and I would have fallenthat followed that path, eddie,
that you described.
But that moderate intensity waseither too intense or too soon,
(10:39):
so you had the symptom rebound.
It's never fun, but it happens,and sometimes you just have to
roll the dice and try to seewhat works for you.
And my best advice here for you, eddie, in particular, is you
know, now you have kind of oneway of testing to see how your
body responded, in a flu likesort of manner.
(11:00):
So now use my advice here andgo longer before you hit
intensity again.
And as you go longer, seven oreven 10 days of just light work
and maybe some strength training, not going too deep, not going
too hard, maybe it's 10 daysdown the road, something like
that my best advice is theadvice that I give to my
athletes, which is wait untilyou feel good, right or normal
(11:24):
and then wait another day andthen on day three, if you feel
good and normal again withoutdoing hard intensity, now you
are ready to go.
So it's kind of like and I'llget into an example week coming
up, but it's like drop intensity, drop volume, drop training,
stress, keep some light strengthtraining in the mix, keep some
(11:44):
light spins going and thenproceed going forward until you
start to feel good and then runthat out for two or three days.
Then, if everything is good,come back to normal training.
And a couple of reminders herethe time course of these viruses
are generally around seven to10 days and there's not much you
can do to speed that up.
(12:05):
But you can delay it, meaning,you know, make that longer by
not resting or stressingyourself so that the body can't
heal as fast.
So you're in for at least 10days.
Why would you make it anylonger?
Also, let's go back to one of mypodcasts I did on detraining.
This is when you're not sickbut you're transitioning.
(12:26):
You just had a training seasonand you're transitioning to the
off season and so you want tobring training down or detrain
for two to three weeks to offseta bunch of stress that's built
up over the year.
So the research and everythingthat I talked about, as well as
my observations and working withmy athletes, suggests that you
can do basically nothing or lowintensity for definitely two
(12:49):
weeks with limited performancedecrements Okay, and you should
bring that like.
That should give you confidencethat you can take a couple of
weeks off and you're not goingto lose much.
And you can take a couple ofweeks off if you are sick and
know that your loss will be lessbecause you let your body heal.
(13:10):
Okay.
Now, after three or four weeks,now the VO2 max starts to come
down, you'll lose a little biton threshold but the aerobic
base.
If you had good momentum formonths and months, you can take
a couple of weeks off and it'snot going to hurt you that much.
Okay.
So don't stress about how muchcan I do during my sickness and
(13:31):
illness.
That will you know.
Maintain this or that orsomething.
The key thing is heal first.
Then the second thing is onceyou know, using that neck rule,
if it's just a head cold or aflu, now you can adjust the
intensity and start making somedecisions on what you're going
(13:51):
to maintain and what you let goaway.
You can maintain some of thesesystems throughout this sickness
time period versus just layingon the couch.
Let's discuss what some examplesare of having a sick week for a
time crunched athlete.
I'll give you a typical weekwith a head cold, starting with
the incubation time period andsome common comments that I'll
(14:14):
see on training peaks or on textmessage from my athletes.
So let's just start with, likeSaturday I'll get a text message
or comment on training peaksthat says am I sick?
And they'll do their traininganyway.
And let's just say it's theweekend and I didn't see it
right, or they didn't text me,or something like that Sunday I
might be sick, monday I'm sick.
(14:36):
And then I'll say, okay,definitely rest day, right.
Tuesday.
Rest day Wednesday head coldconfirmed 30 to 45 minute light
spin or walk, optional.
Or just take another rest dayThursday 30 to 45 minute light
spin or walk again if symptomsare not worsening.
But if symptoms are worsening,take a rest day, okay.
(14:57):
So you can see that there's anincubation time period of a
couple of days where it's like,oh, I have some symptoms but I'm
not sick yet.
Okay, but now I'm definitelysick.
Okay, rest, rest.
Start with some light stuff.
If light stuff is okay, proceedif you have a head cold and
it's not that severe.
So now we're on Friday.
Start to incorporate strengthtraining, and that Friday is
(15:21):
only one, two, three, four, fourdays.
After saying I am sick and I'vetaken a couple of rest days, you
can come back to the gymbecause it's not stressing that
central system as much.
You want to use your head again, decrease the weight, decrease
the load, but proceed withstrength training.
Saturday maybe you do an easyspin for 60 minutes.
Sunday, strength training.
Again Monday 60 minutesendurance, maybe some core work.
(15:43):
Tuesday, strength training.
At this point we are rightaround 10 days from admitting I
am sick, I've taken rest days,I've gone pretty easy, I've
incorporated some light strengthtraining in the mix and we're
on day 10.
That day 10, maybe two by eightminutes or three by eight
(16:03):
minutes of low threshold work,meaning right around 85 to 90%
of FTP with four to six minuterecovery in between, maybe 60
minute total ride time.
That's a good test workoutbecause it's not super stressful
in total time and zone.
It's not super stressful interms of intensity and if that
(16:28):
feels good, especially duringthe first interval, proceed.
If it feels bad, just stop theworkout altogether.
Get through that session ifeverything's feeling fine, and
then on the next day so ThursdayI would rest or take a recovery
spin or something light and youwant to monitor and see if
symptoms are not worsening.
If they don't have a symptom,rebound or something like this,
(16:49):
and if that's good to go andyou're feeling normal, proceed
on with an endurance day andthen resume regular training
after that.
So that's a pretty good exampleand you can rewind and listen
to that again.
But essentially what I'm doingis I'm taking what we know to be
the time course of theseviruses and I'm taking examples
from real life of how I see itaffect my athletes and we're
(17:13):
combining both data and feelingsto get to a plan that logically
works most of the time.
Okay.
But I will say this listen toyour body and know what the
healing rate is for you as anindividual, because it can be
different for different athletes.
(17:35):
It can be different foreverybody, okay.
So some, some of the athletes,heal faster than others, and
this could be because you'reyounger, but not always.
If your recovery habits aredialed and you are in control of
your work schedule and canminimize stress during times of
being sick or during times ofheavy training.
Then you will heal and adaptfaster, and I have some athletes
(17:58):
in their 40s and 50s that healand adapt very quickly for those
reasons.
But if you're a typical timecrunched athlete with a family,
demanding job, not a ton ofcontrol over their work schedule
, the advice that I gave heretoday should hit well.
You may even need to take a fewextra rest days and be more
conservative if you don't havethat control over your life, but
(18:20):
just know that if you take restearlier and you have a more
conservative approach, you willget through the illness quicker
and then you can resume trainingmore quickly.
When in doubt, rest it out.
Know that the time course ofadaptation or physiological
decay that I've gone over in thepodcast of detraining is
(18:42):
normally saying that you can dotwo weeks, if not much, and you
will have minimal decay ofperformance.
Okay.
So just really know that.
Let that sink in and that willgive you confidence as you head
into your rest plan when you'regetting sick.
So in summary, let's recap someof the key takeaways from today.
(19:05):
If you're sick, admit that youare sick and take a few rest
days to start the healingprocess properly.
Use the neck rule to guide yourdecision-making on if you start
in with light aerobic workfirst or take a few more rest
days because the symptoms arebelow the neck, meaning that it
is worse than a head cold.
Plan on not doing anythingharder than zone one or two for
(19:27):
the next seven to 10 days,weaving in a rest day here and
there and knowing that you'renot training but you're
maintaining during this time.
You can incorporate strengthtraining if symptoms remain
above the neck and not worsening.
But be sure to decrease load inthe gym by decreasing weight
sets and reps and using yourcommon sense.
In the end, if you are moreconservative and have a plan
(19:50):
that you can see the light atthe end of the tunnel and resume
training sooner with no symptomrebounds, you'll be back to
pursuing your season goals witha clean bill of health much
sooner.
So that's it.
That's our show for today.
Thank you to Eddie for thequestion.
I was a little nervous,actually in providing advice for
(20:11):
this podcast as I'm no doctor,but in talking with other
coaches as well as my editor, wethought that it was best to
give the in the field sort ofadvice, because nearly every
athlete on the planet deals withthis same scenario.
So best of luck to you, eddie,and I hope this helps if you get
down the road and if you getsick again.
So now, if you have it for allthe rest of the audience members
(20:34):
out there, if you have a goodquestion like this, feel free to
write into us at train rightcombackslash podcast and click on
ask a training question.
Those get set directly to meand I'll do my best to answer it
on a future episode.
We'll see you back here nextweek for more short, actionable
training advice, and don'tforget to tell a friend or
training partner about us.
(20:54):
Thanks again for listening.
I appreciate each and every oneof you.
Thanks for joining us on thetime crunch cyclist podcast.
We hope you enjoyed the show.
If you want even moreactionable training advice, head
over to trainrightcom backslashnewsletter and subscribe to our
free weekly publication.
Each week you'll get in-depthtraining content that goes
(21:17):
beyond what we cover here on thepodcast.
That'll help you take yourtraining to the next level.
That's all for now.
Until next time, train hard,train smart, train right.
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