I somehow managed to stay Covid-free for three years. Last week, went to a basketball game with friends and most of us apparently caught it there – we’re sick with it now, and we’re all recovering.
If you had Covid recently, how soon before you got back to lifting weights? How’d you keep from overdoing it, when you did go back?
Definitely a case-by-case thing. I’ve set PR’s while positive.
TLDR: About two days.
I was sick recently, but I was back to regular lifting and conditioning at near full-force within 48 hours.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’m 99% sure it was COVID: My wife, who had similar symptoms a few days ahead of me, tested positive about a week later, and my father-in-law (who’s 83 and with whom we had spent a lot of time), ended up hospitalized with it later that week.
That’s some pretty strong evidence that I did, in fact, have COVID.
Edit: I will just add that only within the past few days have I felt anything close to “pre-COVID 100%” (whatever that means), particularly with respect to my conditioning work. Sometimes I still feel like my lungs are trying to suck all the air out of the room… But maybe we’ll just say I’m working super-hard now, haha!
I had COVID 2 times, the first one I was pretty asymptomatic, but it was hard to recover and I remember I was struggling at just doing some bodyweight squats. That was before vaccines.
Second time May 2022, 3 days of high fever and flu-like symptoms, but the I went back to training quite reasonably quick.
So every situation is different. You can decide to have a medical check, or just be cautious getting back to training, especially with cardiovascular activity. Be sure to listen to your body and take it easy.
This is what I would do based on my personal experience, no medical advice here.
I’ve had it once for sure (August of last year) and I suspect I had it again earlier this year. Both times I ended up having to take about a week off. The second time I tried to come back earlier and relapsed. My two cents would be if you have a cough to wait until that subsides before you go back to lifting.
My experience was pretty much exactly the same as @Simonon83 in that it was totally different each time. First time: I swear it took me a couple months to get totally back to normal and I was sick as a dog for a week. Second time: it was basically a cold/ the flu for a couple days.
That I’m aware of, I’ve had it twice with confirmation and likely three times. Each experience was different.
The first time it technically didn’t exist yet, in January of the year it came out. But my whole family was ridiculously sick with all the early variation symptoms. High fever, a struggle to breathe, conjunctivitis, a weird and constant copper taste in the mouth, muscle pain, et cetera. It was absolutely brutal and lasted at least a month with some symptoms lingering much longer. I didn’t train for about 6 weeks.
The second time I didn’t even know. I was asked to test prior to a wedding and came back positive with two consecutive tests.
Third time felt like a light cold or even allergies, until my fever shot to 104 and I felt like I was under water. I went to the doc and my oxygen was bouncing back and forth over the limit for hospitalization but they gave me mononuclear antibodies instead. I was free of symptoms hours later and clear of the virus in two days. Maybe sooner, but the test was at two days. I started training as soon as I felt ok though, and missed one training day through the fiasco. I was still lifting when it felt like allergies.
I have had it twice, about 5 months apart. First time got pretty sick, second time it was just a head cold. But, it turned long covid. It has taken me a year to recover.
Only took me 3 days to beat the Delta variant.
5 days after I first tested positive I was back to training.
7 days after I first tested positive I was back to full strength.
Rest, Fluids, sunshine, and Vitamin D.
About a week. Once the crippling muscle aches stopped and I drank my weight in soup I was good to go.