How long should I wait to workout after having Covid?

What do you mean, you feel guilty and anxious? Getting sick isn't a sin...neither is taking care of your body while it recovers.

I know some people have long-term physical limitations from all kinds of illnesses, but the only way to know is to first get your doctors' clearance and then start back up sensibly. You'll know if you're pushing too hard.

christinefrano wrote: »

Thank you!

Yes, I understand it's not a "sin" but I love lifting and love my routine so it's hard for me to just do nothing.

It was crappy for 2 days but I'm feeling muchhh better today. Just some back pain and lil congestion. Fever is gone, and appetite/smell never went away. Hoping to workout Monday!

Sounds like you're one of the luck ones. We had covid over Christmas 2021 and while the symptoms were mild and only lasted a few days it took me a while to get back to normal in respect to workouts. While I generally felt fine my energy levels weren't what they normally are.

I actually felt worse with a chest cold I caught late last fall (tested negative several times) and took longer to recover.

cwolfman13 wrote: »

christinefrano wrote: »

After 3 years, I finally caught the Rona. How long after symptoms stop should I workout (at home btw)?

Also, will this ruin my progress? I took a deload week last week so I'm having a hard time being laid up right now. I got 2 workouts in this week before getting sick but still feeling guilty and anxious to get back into it.

Nothing to feel guilty about...you have to take care of your body. Recovery is going to be individual. I have COVID in early January of 2022. Overall it was very mild and I was only "sick" for a few days but the fatigue lingered for about a month and I was just low energy, especially after about mid morning. Also, for those 4 weeks or so, any strenuous cardio I tried would result in bad coughing fits even though I generally had no cough after the first few days. It was about a month or so before I really did anything other than walking.

I've been at this good livin' stuff since 2012 and I've learned that you need to take a long view, not only of your diet, but also your fitness...*kitten* happens. I've had multiple injuries over the years that have kept me sidelined anywhere from a week to three months or more. You just have to take care of your body and pick back up when you can. Not allowing yourself recovery from illness or injury is likely to result in more of a setback than taking a bit of time off. Listen to your body.

QFT, underscore-underscore-underscore, endorsed, double ditto.

I got athletically active in my late 40s after cancer treatment, am now 67, active that whole time, even when I was still fat.

What @cwolfman13 said there is really important. Too hard, too soon = worse outcomes. I think that's true at any age, from watching my younger rowing buddies.

christinefrano wrote: »

Okay so I tried working out...not really happening. My legs are so weak!! I feel fine, but man these legs don't want to lift any weight. Considering I had a deload the week before, I feel like I'm gonna lose progress..

Hang in there. You will lose a little progress from the break, yes. I think it's very, very likely that you'll lose even more progress if you overdo, then need to recover from that overdoing on top of your other recovery needs.

Rest. Eat nutritious food. Do some mild activities if you feel able, things that aren't too fatiguing. Give yourself some grace.

If you give your body what it needs to recover - however slowly it needs to do it - it will pay you back with really good progress once you work your way back to being 100% your normal self.

You may lose a bit now, but it will come back. I know it's hard to feel fitness slipping. I've been there. But that's not permanent. It will come back.

I think others might be able to provide some better sources as far as what's suggested about working out after having covid. Maybe you should also ask your doctor too ---- BUT:

There is some evidence to suggest that long-covid symptoms have been correlated with NOT taking enough time to actually rest/recover while sick. This idea of 'I gotta get back to work' or 'get back to my diet/workout routine', etc.....can increase the chances that you may have bounce-back symptoms or long-covid complications.

https://newsroom.uw.edu/postscript/don’t-try-tough-out-long-covid-19-symptoms

Also, I won't gunk this up with too many other links but there is something to be said about covid in general, in some people, really triggering autoimmune issues so stressing your body with stuff too much/too quickly also might not be a good idea.


I did have covid last summer -- I had a fever one day and a bit of a scratchy throat but that was really all the symptoms I had so I didn't really feel 'sick'. I was vaccinated and boosted at the time and also received a prescription for Paxlovid... I'd say I got back to running within 1.5-2 weeks - but I did notice that my heart rate would get high pretty quick. I bounced back fairly quickly though I'd say. But you kind of just have to go by how you feel and know that it's OK to pack up and head home if you're not feeling it that day.

christinefrano wrote: »

Okay so I tried working out...not really happening. My legs are so weak!! I feel fine, but man these legs don't want to lift any weight. Considering I had a deload the week before, I feel like I'm gonna lose progress..

For one, fitness progress doesn't degrade that rapidly. Secondly, a long break can obviously lead to fitness degradation, but it also comes back pretty quickly with muscle memory being a thing. When I was doing a lot of endurance cycling and events, I always took off November, December, and January...there was always some degradation in my performance, but I was generally back to being able to knock out 1/2 centuries and the like within about 4-6 weeks of resuming training...just in time for the season. It was always a both a healthy physical and mental break from grinding on the road. As lifting goes, I often performed best after a couple of weeks of vacation (I don't workout on vacation).

I'd stick to light walking. I've had COVID twice-and-a-half because the second time I pushed too hard, too soon and ended up with rebound COVID and had what felt like bronchitis for another month. I know it's frustrating, but trying to push through the fatigue that comes with COVID will probably do more harm than good at this point. If you decide to do anything, I'd try and make sure you don't have anything scheduled to do soon after. There were several days where I'd just do some kettlebell swings and end up needing a nap afterward.

It's al old thread, but I've seen quite some paper abstracts coming by on Twitter lately that Covid and exercise should be exclusive from one another to prevent heart damage. Thus no exercise during an infection and a while thereafter.

I will chip in here.

It is *very* dependent on the individual, the severity of the symptoms, and the the extent and type of persistent symptoms. People talk about 'long COVID' but really this is several different things. One flavor is just symptoms that you had while sick that take a long time to go away. If you have severe COVID then you get congestion that takes 3-9 months to clear, and many other things can last. The second is new symptoms that can appear. The third is the famous symptoms that are like chronic fatigue syndrome or ME.

My wife has had COVD twice very mildly. The first time was just like a normal cold, she had to take some medicine, didn't feel great. Second time it was even less than that. Both times she isolated and didn't interrupt her exercise schedule. That being said, we have both heard of people with very mild cases who felt quite a bit worse after exercising.

I got COVID twice, the first *severely*. I was medically evacuated from the place I work, in an private air ambulance, and nearly died. Once I got out of hospital I rested for about a week and then I started walking up the very steep hill outside my family home, twice a day and then once a day when the walks got longer. First day, I could only make about 20m and I had to stop three times and was pretty much doubled over. Within a week or so I could walk the whole hill (it was about a mile) and within two weeks we were able to go trekking in the UK lake district. Had to stop quite often on the uphill parts but we did it. Getting to this point was *very* hard but I did it. My breathing was back to normal within three months and my cardio was actually better than it was before I got sick. So in this case exercise worked extremely well for me. But this was because I had pretty much no persistent symptoms except the 'COVID changes' in my lungs and weird liver function.

The second time I got COVID it was not as severe but I was hospitalized again- mainly precautionary. However this time it left me with a lot of fun, persistent symptoms. And for about two-three months exerting myself would often cause mini-crashes in my Oxygen saturation and make my BP spike. But after that I was able to exercise fairly normally. The mini-crashes came anyway, but I was able to lift and run.

So... people have really different experiences.