Help Needed: Workout Plan for Sufferers of Long COVID

tad2304

I caught COVID 3 times in 2 years. My exercise routine used to be a mix of boxing and Barry’s, 5-7 times a week depending on my schedule.

After my last brush with COVID in April 2022, I have been finding it very difficult to head to the gym or anything physically draining because of my extreme fatigue and burning/sore joints and aches that come and go intermittently. The burning and soreness feels like what you would typically feel post-workout.

I am at my wits end because nothing - my diet, my sleep, my schedule, my lifestyle, my stress levels - has changed. I am doing what worked for me previously and now, I feel like every step I take is 10 steps back literally.

The fatigue and burn has nothing to do with how I work out or my post-workout nutrition. I have factored those out by reducing my usual intensity and ensuring that I am doing everything to prevent potential injury while getting enough rest in between to avoid DOMS.

My typical day also starts at 4:30am with sleep at 10:30pm. I do intermittent fasting from 8:00pm to 8:00am, and have a good lunch and dinner after.

Has anyone in this forum experienced the impact of long COVID on your exercise routine? If so, do you have any tips on how to make a sustainable workout routine for someone who is experiencing almost chronic fatigue and ache?

michael6186

I can't speak to the long term COVID exposure and recovery and the effects on exercise, so I won't speak on those but from what I understand about what you're saying on your personal experience, it sounds like you just jumped back into what you were once doing and haven't changed anything, including on the lifestyle side outside of the gym. Which makes me think based on your frustrations and results, you probably should change something.

If COVID has wrecked you to the point that you describe then it's probably wise to cut back on duration and intensity to start. Then while keeping intensity to a minimum, add duration and see how that goes first.

You don't get a lot of sleep it appears, so if possible, I would increase that. Sounds like you need a lot of recovery as you're still fighting the residual effects and your body isn't healed. There's a lot more hours out of the gym per week than there is in the gym, so you should focus on doing everything you can to drive your body into a recovery state in order to heal and prepare for your next workout.

5 to 7 days of working out is more than doable for most people with proper programming but it sounds like you should cut your days to only what you can adequately recover from and slowly add in 1 day at a time as you progress. If you find that your recovery is slow, you will have to work with it, not against it. It's not wise to force your body into a fight of what you want versus what it's capable of doing. It will always push back and you'll end up paying for it in the long run through further sickness and injury.

Specifically what you should do on any individual day will depend on various factors but you should start with things that are low cost tasks.

AnnPT77

There was a paper written (for coaches, etc., of all levels of athletes) with recommendations about return to exercise/training post Covid. The basic idea is to ease back into it, which doesn't sound like what you've been doing? Here's the document:

https://www.uptodate.com/contents/covid-19-return-to-sport-or-strenuous-activity-following-infection

There are others from equally well-credentialed sources, but most I've seen trend along the same lines.

I can't give you a cite, but I recently heard a report (on National Public Radio, here in the US) in which some expert being interviewed said that long Covid symptoms are somewhat more likely to occur in people who do too much too fast after an infection.

An ACSM article says that cardiopulmonary issues can occur post-Covid, and encourages caution:

https://www.acsm.org/blog-detail/acsm-certified-blog/2021/12/20/safe-return-to-physical-activity-after-covid-19

kshama2001

Did you reduce your usual intensity at least 50%?

Frankly, it actually sounds like you should be at less than 50%...

drmwc wrote: »

I've not had it myself, but there has at least one study on returning to exercise. The advice seems to be to return gradually, and is dependent on how severe the infection was.

Here is the paper:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11420-020-09777-1

Here are the recommendations and considerations from the summary table:

• Considerations
• Each patient with COVID-19 is unique. Although general patterns in COVID-19 have been reported, there is a wide variance of disease expression.
• Each patient with COVID-19 recovers at a unique rate. There is currently no algorithm guiding a patient’s stepwise return to activity.
• The severity of disease appears to affect the duration of recovery, although this has yet to be proven.
• Return to activity after COVID-19 should be guided by a body-system approach that includes the cardiac, pulmonary, hematologic, musculoskeletal, and gastrointestinal systems.
• Clinicians should advise patients to return to activity in a slow, gradual, stepwise manner.
• Patients should be given instructions to speak with their health care provider should they develop symptoms in the body systems listed above.
• Recommendations
• Exercise should not resume if a patient with COVID-19 has persistent fever, dyspnea at rest, cough, chest pain, or palpitations.
• Any COVID-19 patient with an underlying cardiovascular or pulmonary condition should consult a physician prior to resumption of exercise, even if asymptomatic.
• An otherwise healthy patient with a self-limited course of COVID-19 who has been asymptomatic for 7 days may begin resuming physical activity at 50% of normal intensity and volume.
• Consultation with a physician is recommended if patients who have had COVID-19 develop chest pain, fever, palpitations, or dyspnea on the resumption of exercise.

yirara

Also to add what the others said: do you get enough sleep? 6 hours every night is very little, and even more so when recovering from covid.

dingletree

Look at Long Covid Physio's website. It's an international and professional consortium. On this page they link to exercise resources.

https://longcovid.physio/resources

BeautifullyBroken52

I have no tips but, I am 3 years past my Covid infection and I have only recently been able to get back to the gym etc. I know exactly how you are feeling and what you described. I went from fit and healthy to fat and with several immune issues/ disorders from Covid not to mention the tons of meds I take for the pain. I was extremely scared to try again because of the pain. I finally did about 1.5 months ago. I started with losing weight . I’m also 56 so that doesn’t help. Hang in there!