Thursday, February 8, 2007

Exercising After Illness

Along with the change of seasons comes changes in your health sometimes triggered by seasonal allergies. These bouts with illness can interrupt your daily exercise routine raising the question of when you should return to exercise after being ill.

The main concern with upper-respiratory illnesses such as the common cold, strep throat, sinusitis and inner ear infection, is fever. When you have a fever, the red blood cells in your body are unable to carry the usual amount of oxygen, therefore, placing an extra burden on your heart to pump oxygen to your body's muscles and major organs where it's needed. Your heart rate can increase approximately 10 beats per minute for every degree of fever you have.

Lower-respiratory illnesses, which include bronchitis and pneumonia, make it difficult for oxygen to be transported from the lungs to the red blood cells. This, once again, places more demand on the heart to pump faster in order to get oxygen carrying blood through your body.

So, if you have any of these illnesses you should be fever free and completely recovered of the illness before you return to exercising. Follow these simple guidlelines and it won't be long until you're back into your regular routine.

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