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Of exercise and illness

Are you worried that your mild illness may rip you off the benefits of your exercise regimen? Don't panic as sticking to exercise, without pushing yourself too much, will only boost and not damage health.

A HEAD cold or a mild bout of diarrhoea will briefly derail a fitness programme without long-term ill effects, but a fever lasting a few days can unravel the hard-won benefits of weeks of aerobic conditioning or weight training. Summoning up the motivation to claw back to earlier fitness levels is harder than sticking with an unbroken schedule. No wonder athletes are so wary of catching a bug and health myths flourish in the cosseted hypochondriac atmosphere of players' dressing rooms. Not all of these old musclemen tales are false. While most of us associate exercise with vigorous health, athletes may actually be more vulnerable to infection during certain phases of their exercise programmes. Weird, isn't it? Read on.

It appears that prolonged and intense exercise transiently worsens the immunity of the athlete. This is true of all who push themselves beyond their limits during competition or training — especially marathon runners, sprinters and bodybuilders. The elements of this immune response include lower lymphocyte count, muscle cell injury leading to sequential release of pro and anti-inflammatory factors in the body, decreased ability of the upper airways to clear pathogens. The high level of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline is in part responsible for the dampening of the immune function. Post competition or post training, there is a window of opportunity for viruses and bacteria to gain a foothold in the athlete's body. The window lasts from anywhere between three hours to three days.

So what is the top class athlete, the weekend gym warrior or the walker to do? For starters, those of us who take moderately intense exercise need not worry much about this. As long as you are not pushing yourself beyond your limit, your immune system will continue to receive a boost rather than damage from exercise. Athletes have a greater need to avoid high-risk behaviour like smoking, mental stress, poor hygiene, poor eating habits, etc.

Although a balanced, healthful diet is probably the best help you can give your immune system, athletes may find that a diet rich in carbohydrate somewhat dampens stress hormone release brought on by intense exercise. This makes them less vulnerable to infection following training or competition.

Should you stay in bed when sick? If the illness is a mild head cold with no systemic symptoms, gentle exercise like walking is ok. If the symptoms extend to the whole body-fever, body aches, and so on it is better to take bed rest, followed by a gradual return to training after the illness subsides. Wait for at least a fortnight after the illness before you attempt any intense exercise. Athletes who train hard when they are sick sometimes suffer from "post viral fatigue syndrome" — an ordeal of depression, vulnerability to infections, easy fatigability and muscular weakness that can last for weeks. We don't want that, do we?

RAJIV. M

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