Q: Q: I woke up with a cold today, can I still do my regular workout??

It seems like it always happens just when you’re making some solid progress with your training – you wake up and next thing you know, you can hardly get out of bed. Your nose is stuffed, your body aches, and your throat has this feeling that you just know a cold is on the verge of breaking out.

Working Out With a Cold

At this point, the question of whether you can do your workout program is likely one of the first things running through your mind.

Should you force yourself up and get in that workout, hoping that it will make you feel better, or should you stay in bed, rest up, and pray that you’re feeling up to it tomorrow?

The general rule for whether you can workout when you have a cold is to take a look at your symptoms. If the symptoms tend to be neck up only, that is you have a stuffy noise and a sore throat, then yes, working out at this point likely is going to be alright and you may just find that it does help you feel better.

But if your symptoms are neck down and your body aches, you feel out of balance, and you’re dizzy upon standing, then it’s time to crawl right back into bed where you belong. Going to the gym when you feel like this is just an all around bad idea because not only could you actually put yourself in danger since you’re out of balance and dizzy, but you likely won’t have anywhere near a good workout anyway.

So in that instance, rest and up and hit the gym when you’re closer to 100%. The stress from the workout will likely be a little too much for your body to deal with on top of the stress from the cold, so you don’t want to take things too far.

By keeping this simple trick in mind, you can quickly determine whether that gym session is a smart move or not.