In my opinion:


Lifting with a cold is fine. You may want to reduce volume a bit, at least when I lift with a cold I have to drop volume down quite a bit. Listen to your body on that one.


Lifting barefoot is fine as long as you're aware of the potential risks to your feet (dropping a weight on them/etc).

I go between wearing Converse, running shoes, and bare feet to lift. I'm pretty sure that none of them will do much of anything if I drop a plate on them.

In my opinion:


Lifting with a cold is fine. You may want to reduce volume a bit, at least when I lift with a cold I have to drop volume down quite a bit. Listen to your body on that one.


Lifting barefoot is fine as long as you're aware of the potential risks to your feet (dropping a weight on them/etc).

I go between wearing Converse, running shoes, and bare feet to lift. I'm pretty sure that none of them will do much of anything if I drop a plate on them.

That's a fair point. It's probably minimal/zero protection if you actually drop something heavy on them.

Like Side Steel said, listen to your body but cut the volume/weight since if you tire yourself out your immune system can't do its job as effectively. However, if you have a fever never work out. A fever already increases your heart rate, pushing it can cause damage.

That was the only time were not allowed to workout by our instructor. You could take it easy if you were sick but you still had to take class. But if you had a fever you weren't.

Converse chucks are cheap flat footed shoes but I'm old-school and go bare foot. Now I've also busted all my toes over the years of doing martial arts so dropping a plate on them wouldn't matter any more. ;-)