The focus is on the important considerations for working out when you’re feeling under the weather. The discussion covers the circumstances under which you should avoid exercise altogether, such as when experiencing severe symptoms like fever or vomiting. For those with milder symptoms, the benefits of light exercise are explored, including how it can aid in recovery by improving circulation and lymph movement. Listeners are encouraged to pay close attention to their bodies and adjust their workout intensity accordingly.

There are also unique risks associated with exercising while dealing with COVID-19. Since the virus affects the vascular system, monitoring your oxygen levels and heart rate with a pulse oximeter is emphasized as a crucial step before working out. The conversation offers practical advice on how to safely maintain a fitness routine during illness, emphasizing the importance of not pushing too hard and being mindful of how your body responds during workouts.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:04 – When Not to Work Out
00:58 – Benefits of Working Out When Sick (Mild Symptoms)
01:20 – Using a Pulse Oximeter
01:57 – Caution with COVID-19
03:07 – Signs of Trouble During Workouts
05:59 – Adjusting Workouts During Illness
08:57 – Mental Commitment to Working Out
10:13 – Final Advice on Working Out When Sick

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] This question is talked a lot. And so I want to kind of go over today. Should you work out when you’re sick? Let’s go to the obvious one. First thing, if you’re throwing up or you have a fever or you think you might be contagious, do not go into public places. Do not go to the gym. So that would need to be thrown out. Now, if it’s your own gym and you want to go in that you never destroy. So, you do need to find the rest time. You do need to find a point where you need to listen to your body and you’re like, I’m obviously sick. I’m not going to work out. However, when you feel bad, you know, so you’re you’re coming out of illness or you feel like you might be going into one, especially if you’re going into an illness, before you’re contagious for. I have a fever. This thing working. That’s a great idea. It helps move the lymph around. Helps with the blood around. How should I get things going? It’s a great idea. If it’s your own personal gym, knock it out there. There are caveats to this. The biggest caveat is if it’s covered, colds and flu are different. Covid is bioweapon. It was designed to do all sorts of devastating, damaging things to you. So keep that in mind. The number one thing to do is to check your pulse ox. If you don’t have a pulse ox, you know, grab on.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:20] This is a pulse ox. So what it does is you put your finger and it kind of tells you how much oxygen is in your blood and what your heart rate is at the moment. So, what you’re going to want to do is you want to try to figure out, you know, where it is, where it’s at. Give it a second to kind of calibrate, because sometimes it has to calm down all that. So what we’re looking at is. You think if you talk to them in the bottom number, you can’t say that’s right. The top number is the percentage of oxygen in your blood. The bottom number is how hard your heart has to work to keep it there. During Covid, there are a lot of videos of. I remember one from a guy wearing an LSU lanyard saying he was a surgeon and his oxygenation was 98 and his heart rate was 114, and he was like, see, mash, don’t do anything. I’m totally fine. So either he has anger management issues that makes the Hulk look normal, or he has no idea how pulse ox works. Which is really scary because if he’s actually a surgeon at LSU, I’m guessing he was LSU lanyard, I’m guessing is an LSU educated person. He’s going to kill a lot of people, because if you’re a surgeon and you think that 114 is a normal heart rate for 98% oxygen, you’re in trouble, guys. The reason this is important is because Covid is a vascular issue. It compresses the blood vessels, decreasing oxygenation to all your tissue. Brain, heart, lung. That’s why the cancer rates are going up. That’s why you’re going to see all the heart attacks and strokes and planking and dementia and all sorts, stuff like that. If you’ve got Covid when you’re working out, what you will notice is that everything feels pretty cool, like in between sex, you’re good. However, after you’re set, you’re going to feel a lot less in shape.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:07] You’ll be winded more, your heart should be a lot faster, can take you a second to like, and probably 30% to 50% longer to calm down after you’re set. Like, a lot of times you’ll less, you’ll get up. And you know, even if you’re not breathing perfect, you know, 15 20s your heart rate calms down and oh, all right, you’re good. You can breathe again like normal. Everything’s fine when you have Covid. A lot of times will end up happening. Is that after you get done with your set, it’ll take you instead of 15 20s. You’re a minute and a half before your heart rate calms down. You feel like you caught your breath again. And this happens, like, you know, this happens on and off. So if you’ve got active spike proteins in here, this is something you’re going to see a lot. When we treat people for vaccine damage, from the Covid vaccine, this is one of the things we see a lot as the, is the the the heart rate’s so high, they’re having trouble catching their breath. And so what ends up happening is that they’re like magic. Get dizzy. I get, like, lightheaded. I just feel like I’m out of shape more. I think I see, like, I, I climb stairs like I run, right? Like they run three or 4 or 5 miles a day, and, like, I have a flight of stairs and I’ll be the extra winded. I’ll just go like that. I don’t know, it’s so hard to breathe. So those type of things, you definitely need to monitor that. If you’re trying to work out, and you start noticing that, check your pulse. See what’s going on. If you’ve, if you’ve got stuff that is creating issues specifically with breathing, that’s something you need to that’s not one of those things where like, suck it up and tough it out. Don’t do that.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:04:43] Figure out what’s going on if you guys need to add in something else. Not okay. Nice. You go in more neck, whatever it is, you know, to get that stuff going. The copper peptide where I’m looking at that for a lot of, vascular stuff. That’s why it actually helps your hair come back is because it increases blood flow to the scalp, but it increases blood flow kind of everywhere. Especially if you’re taking the orals or the, injectable. So that’s on my radar, things we’re looking at. But, if you’re noticing that we are working out, you guys need to calm your workouts down. If you put extra strain on your heart and your blood vessels, to make you dizzy, like people tell me, like, you know, like I don’t know what’s going on. Like, I’ve been working out for 20 years, but, you know, recently, like, I do a set and get up in my lightheaded, and I kind of like, I feel weak and fatigued for a second. I’m like, yeah, my heart rate’s real fast. Like, yeah, heart rate’s fast. Actually. Thinking to catch our breath. Yep. That’s what we’re talking about. So if you guys are noticing that keep that in mind. You want to you want to push yourself through feeling bad. You want to push yourself through uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is where all real growth happens. Whether it’s mentally physically doesn’t matter. If you live in uncomfortable you will grow up. You will get better. The problem is, if you push yourself too hard and uncomfortable, say when you have something like Covid, it can be more detrimental than you think it is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:59] So keep that in mind. These post boxes are like 20 bucks on Amazon. Grab them there. Grab. You know, we have the CVS and Walgreens. You know where I’m at. I don’t know what you guys have where you’re at. Walmart probably terrorism but drum on Amazon, you can grab them there. It’s a really important tool to have. So now whenever we have patients who call us up and like, hey, I’ve got XYZ, I ask for the temperature and also asking for their pulse ox. Because this the pulse ox. Things are pretty, pretty solid tool. If you guys don’t have one, grab one. But that’s that’s the biggest issue I see with you. Working out when you’re sick is, you know, if it’s a if it’s a Covid thing, you’ve got to watch your heart. If your heart rate, you know, if you like, calm your workout down, you’re like, all right, cool. Take the same account. Drop my weights a little bit. My rep. Cancel that. You know, listen to my heart. You know, that sort of thing. I feel it starts beating real fast. And you’re listening. That’s not normal. Cut your workout back a little bit. That’s fantastic. One of the hard things for a lot of people to do is let’s say you do cardio after you left, which, if you’re going for fat loss, that’s the way you want to do it. So you’re lifting and you’re noticing this. I would cut the cardio out like that. Or at least cut it way back. At least monitor the hell out of it. So if you don’t have any wearables, you guys can start getting wearables. The I, the I watch is fine. Garments are fine, which are fine, or I don’t really care. Grab the ones that you like, and wear it. But you guys do start taking track of your oxygenation, your heart rate.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:07:30] Those are going to be two really important things. You go through all your training, all your lifting. Because, you know, as we talk about damaging the muscle tissue is the name of the game for the gym. However, we’re talking about regrowth or regeneration, which are about long term health. Regeneration and healing is actually where all that lives. If you’ve got lowered oxygen, it can be really, really hard to do that. You’re also gonna put it under significantly higher strain. Not not in a good way either. So monitor your pulse ox. Try to figure out where that is. Walk yourself through a workout. You gotta cut it down. 20, 30. You know, cut it down to 20 or 30% over you normally. That’s great. Now, remember, you should never leave the gym. If you get there and you’ve got some stuff going on, you’re looking at your pulse ox and you’re like, man, I don’t know. Do I really like to kind of just walk through the motions? Be really, really just make it a form that I really, really, really get super critical type on your form because you never want to leave the gym as soon as you leave the gym for any reason outside of I’m done with my workout. You start creating a habit that you don’t have to work out when you go or like working out. It’s optional. Or like going to the gym isn’t as important. The one of the most important things you’re building when you go to the gym is your mental function. It’s the commitment. It’s the dedication. It’s the this is how I live my life. This is what I do. So if you already are there and your pulse ox is bad, or you’re like, man, I just, I don’t know, I’m not feeling today. I do a bad workout.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:57] A bad workout is infinitely better than no workout. Because sometimes, like I said, it’s not for your body. It’s for your mind. And so I always tell people, there’s two reasons you workout for your body and for your mind, or for your character. The days that you don’t want to workout but you do it anyway. Those are the days you build character. Those are the days you build that commitment. Those are the days you build that dedication. Those are the days that you build that loyalty to your goals and to yourself. So do kind of watch out. Taper your workout back. You know, but definitely don’t definitely don’t skip it. Now, having said that, if you’re like, I don’t feel good, but I’m gonna go anyway. And you get there and you throw up, go home. But that’s fine. Like you’re working abs, now you’re throwing up. You’re doing core work. So. But yeah, as long as you’re not throwing up and have a fever, you know, try to skip your workout, but do kind of monitor your pulse ox, because if you’re feeling bad and if it’s a cold, if it’s a flu science infection or whatever. Great. Go ahead and workout. As long as you’re not having a fever or throwing up. But if you’re checking your pulse ox and your pulse ox is, you know, if it’s lower 98 or the heart rate’s higher than like 75. Start your workout back a little bit. And again, if you start noticing that your heart’s beating a lot faster than normal, if it’s harder to catch your breath, if you feel like you know, you’re just not like you’re breathing.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:10:13] But nothing’s happening, right? Like, I don’t know. It’s not working. Now calming down. Yeah I’m still out of breath. Are still going crazy. You know, that’s pretty good indicator that you need to start turning the workout back for that day. So. Yeah, but that doesn’t twice that. You have a standard, right? Like, I’ve been going to the gym for months and this is different. Like the way my heart’s beating now is different. Where I’m breathing is now is different. That’s that’s where you need to start calling it back. If you haven’t been in the gym for a while and you’re breathing hard and your heart rate two and crazy. Most likely you’re just out of shape and you need to push through that. But check your pulse ox. That will give us a better indication. So keep that up. If you have your own gym. You have your own space like I do, you know, go in and if you have a light fever or, you know, you threw up earlier and you’re like, I just want to go walk through a workout. That’s actually what I would do. I would do just the trashiest workout ever. I would do 20, 20% of my normal stuff, but I would get in there and I would do something just because, again, my thing is I’m going to be committed to doing this every single day regardless. So, but that’s kind of where that one is. I know we’ve talked about this a lot. But do kind of monitor yourself. It’s going to be really, really important that you watch your oxygen level. So if you have any questions in the comments or questions at Chalmers, welcome. Thanks for your time.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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