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Getting Back to the Gym After Being Sick: How to Know When You're Actually Ready · The Unsexy Businessmen

• Alex Skinner: edition of the Unsexy Podcast where we talk about the unsexy side of everything. I am Alex Skinner as always joined by my brother Aaron Skinner and today we are talking about something that I literally am going through right now so it's fresh on the brain. How do you decide when to start working out again after you have been sick? So I recently came down with strep throat about seven days ago doing Night and day better compared to where I was. I was looking at my aura ring. On average, I normally have about one to one and a half hours of stress per day. While I was sick, I had anywhere between eight and 12 hours of stress on my body per day. Wasn't feeling great, feeling better now. Today was my first time working out in probably 10 days because I started feeling bad on a Saturday. Today we're recording on a Tuesday. Um, and then I didn't realize I had strep till Wednesday, started taking the medicine, still didn't feel great. And then my wife also got sick. So all of that happened. So giving a little context to Aaron, have you experienced this before and how do you go about assessing when, how hard to go, et cetera. Aaron Skinner: remember like back in the day, the kind of the thought was, oh, the best way to get over an illness. I mean, I guess rest has always been a thing, but for a while there was like, you just gotta get back to the gym. You gotta get back to work it out and your body will miraculously recover faster. I don't know if you remember that. I just remember that being a thing like, oh, dude, you gotta get back at it. And that's how it works. Alex Skinner: I always thought, yeah, I always thought it was you like that. That's how you break your tell you break your fever, break your fever by working out and then it will break it somehow breaks it. Whatever that means. All modern medicine. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, ⁓ is, contrary to all the scientific studies that have, yeah. What you're supposed to do is just rest. ⁓ yeah. I mean, I, I do definitely get sick sometimes and I wait until I am about at a hundred percent before I'm going to the gym. The main reason is, like, okay, let's say you're 50%. You're going to be able to maybe do 50 % at the gym. And not only that, but you're just going to prolong. your body being able to recover anyway, because that's one of the main purposes of working out is the recovery process, because that's what is actually building your muscle is when you're recovering. ⁓ And so that's what I do now. I'm like, I'm not going back to the gym until I'm well, and multiple reasons, not just for me, I'm not going to be the asshole who's going to the gym and getting everybody else sick. Like, I'm not going to be that person. So I want to make sure that I am like past my contagious phase and that I am, I can actually put in a good work out are probably the two reasons I you know I'm pretty self-aware and and conscientious that I can barely say that and so I don't want to go and get people sick but then like you're just to me you're just wasting a session at the gym and prolonging your illness by going before you are fully recovered ⁓ so yeah that's what I do I just wait until I'm feeling better and then I then I go back Alex Skinner: How do you establish back to 100 %? Do you have metrics that you look at? What's the feel of your body compared to the sickness previous compared to what you think is 100 % health? Aaron Skinner: Well, I would not, you're right. I probably wouldn't be able to say I'm 100%, but no, no, I know what you mean. ⁓ I think it's just like, know your body. Alex Skinner: or whatever the number is. Aaron Skinner: Like, and also don't use this as an excuse to not go to the gym. Like I'm still, I'm still kind of a little achy. I don't know if I should go or here's the other thing too. ⁓ if you're, if you're not a hundred percent sure, go and do like a lighter workout, see how you feel after it, as opposed to like, I'm going to go and try and hit my, personal records with every single lift or whatever you're doing. ⁓ just go back. I'm going to get in a decent, you know, 30 minute to hour workout. I'm not going to go hard, strenuous on this. And then I will. Alex Skinner: Right, that's what I'm scared of. That's why I'm asking. Aaron Skinner: I will gauge how I feel after that. And then if I still feel that I still feel like I'm getting better the next day or you know, maybe you're you're not 90 % now you're 95 % or whatever like you're the trajectory for getting better is going up. ⁓ Then you can start doing but yeah, I wouldn't go back to the gym after an illness and then just push super hard. I would probably do a lighter day see how then that I would see how I felt the next day. Alex Skinner: Yeah, I did a I did a more strip. on Saturday, so that would have been a week after the illness had initially started. I started feeling better on Thursday and then Friday I was like, I'm just gonna walk. And I was getting incredibly tired just walking on the treadmill. And so that was an indicator to me. I'm I am nowhere close to being recovered yet. I'm gonna take today off, I'm gonna take tomorrow off, see how I feel on Monday. A bunch of stuff happened on Monday that led to me not working out. Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Perfect. Alex Skinner: worked out pretty hard today. Once again, we're recording on a Tuesday. Might've been just a smidge too early, but also like I'm feeling like I was definitely feeling it. Like I was incredibly tired by the end of it. but I think I'm going to be okay. There wasn't like a point where I was just like, oh my gosh, like I need to stop or I'm going to pass out or something tragic is going to happen today. It was just one of the more difficult workouts that I had. And then what I like to use too is I have, so since I have my aura ring and I know it's not 100 % accurate, I like looking at what my recovery looks like after I've done my workout. So like I had mentioned before, into the stress stratus Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Alex Skinner: while I was sick like. Aaron Skinner: Mm-hmm. Alex Skinner: for four straight days, on the highest it could possibly go on the chart. And then I was looking at this after I did my workout, there was a little bit of stress, but then it came back to like the relaxed restored zone. I was like, okay, so I didn't over strain my body, because usually with, with aura ring, if you're over straining your body, it will just go back to the like, ⁓ your body is still in a state of stress trying to make up for whatever you just did. So use the tools that you have, even though once again, not necessarily 100 % accurate, they still can provide some guidance as to what you can do. Like I don't even, the reason I knew I couldn't work out until, I actually think I broke the, I don't think I should have worked out Saturday at all. Knew I could work out Saturday was because my aura ring has this thing that says like, ⁓ based on like, it's like this giant warning in the morning, like something is stressing your body. and then it gives you a list, like your, ⁓ Aaron Skinner: Yes. Yeah. Alex Skinner: Your temperature's elevated, your breathing variability is not great, your recovery index is bad. Aaron Skinner: Is it, I was gonna ask you, does it measure your HRV? So that's your heart rate variability. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Alex Skinner: Yeah, so that's the one that I just screwed up. So it has like your HRV, it's like your HRV is still not good. And then I think on Saturday I had just had like a slightly elevated temperature, but my HRV was back to normal and my recovery index was back to normal. was like, okay, I'm good. But I was still like, there's still minor signs, still minor signs of something struck, like. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Alex Skinner: I cannot, this is almost turning into a, into a, advertisement for our ring, but really it's any wearable that you have that can provide you that insight and data like is game changing. Cause essentially I knew for sure Thursday, Friday. And then obviously when I'm sick, it's just like you're something that's straight in your body. Something is straight in your body. I'm like, all right, cool. got to chill today. Aaron Skinner: Of course, yes. Yeah, yeah. We have called 911. No, that's, mean, even, cause I don't use the Oar Ring. I use this, it's called a Maze Fit. I think it's by like Zep or something, or maybe it is by a Maze Fit. I don't know. I used to wear a whoop and they're way too expensive. They're like insanely expensive for what, it does like the exact same thing and there's no subscription. And we're, I'm not, we have no affiliation with them nor, guess you do kind of with Oar Ring. But, oh, okay. Alex Skinner: Not anymore. Aaron Skinner: So I mean, there's, but I tell my friends, like if you want something, you know, find, I can't wear rings, so I wouldn't do an or ring. I just, hate wearing stuff on my hands. In fact, I don't like wearing stuff on my wrist either, but this is like so light. I don't even notice that it's there. But yeah, like, and then like you were saying, Alex, you'll get people like, know how inaccurate those things are. And it goes back to what we were talking about with the Dexter scans, like. Alex Skinner: In a good way. Aaron Skinner: You know what else less accurate me just guessing of all these things. Like even if it's off by whatever, there's at least like a benchmark of what is my normal or your normal. And then it goes off of that. And that's, that's why was asking about your HRV. Cause that's one of the main things I look at. ⁓ If, if I'm ready to start working out again, because I think it's the higher that number is the more ready you are. And there's been times where it's just like your HRV is like crazy low. And it's funny because those are the times that I like, would have been stressed or I didn't sleep well or like a bunch of different things. And it was right. Like I would still go to the gym. I'm like, man, it didn't work out as well as I was hoping. And you know, it ended up being correct. So even if, even if they're not a hundred percent accurate, it's to me, it's better. It's much better than nothing. Alex Skinner: What's, what did, do know what your HRV is? Or just like in general? Mine's like. Aaron Skinner: Right now, I can tell you, I'll pull it up. I think mine is usually around 70. Alex Skinner: What the heck? Aaron Skinner: What is yours? Is yours 12? Alex Skinner: Well, the way that it rec... No, the way it rec... Like now I'm like... Aaron Skinner: Oh, mine was 63 today. I think anything above, I, you know, I should know this, but I don't. So don't listen to us about health. Just, we'll give you business advice. What was it yesterday? Yeah, it's in like the, it's usually around, my HRD is usually around 65 to 70, like low seventies is like, I think pretty typical. Alex Skinner: Activity range. Do you find HRV in Auraring? Because I couldn't, because like mine was saying, like as I looked at the reason I asked this, I looked it up. like the averages between like these numbers, like in your 30s and 40s. I swear I was saying like 15, but like that number has to be something different. Aaron Skinner: Where are you? Yeah, let's see. Let's see what it... Alex Skinner: Know all your numbers, everybody. Know your numbers. You have to know your numbers. Aaron Skinner: The variation between the heartbeats is called heart rate variability. This is from the app. Heart rate variability is calculated by measuring the variation in the intervals between consecutive heartbeats. The HRV value measured by a MaceFit device uses, I don't know what the fuck that is. Switch stands, it doesn't matter. ⁓ I'm not gonna read this whole thing, it's gonna be fucking boring. ⁓ But I mean, the whole. Alex Skinner: ⁓ okay. I'm stupid. Everybody my respiratory rate. it's respiratory rate HRV. I was thinking of respiratory rate. Sorry. Today it was 15. Aaron Skinner: is what's your respiratory rate? For some reason, I'm thinking of like beats per minute, not respiratory rate. I'm like, holy shit, what are you, a triathlete? Uh-huh. Alex Skinner: Well, cause like when it was bad, was 12.9 per minute. I don't know what that means. then now it's usually I'm in like, usually I'm in like the fifteens it looks like. And now it's turning into Aaron and Alex sharing their and now for a special segment, Aaron and Alex share their personal data. ⁓ there we go. Heart rate variability today. It's 58 milliseconds. Aaron Skinner: I do have a section for Vo2Max. ⁓ gotcha. their personal. And here the section that no one gives a shit about. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, 50, it's Alex Skinner: Why wasn't it good yesterday? Anyways, so sick. So being sick, What is your nutrition like when you're sick? Obviously, it probably depends, but like how I was struggling a little bit with that. Aaron Skinner: Maybe you're stressed. So being sick bad. With food, mean, that's just the thing. think it, yes, your appetite goes away, your, and then obviously it goes away for multiple reasons. It's probably one of the main reasons. I mean, your body's trying to fight to get better, but then also you're not doing anything. You're not burning calories. probably, you were probably just laying down, not doing anything, not being active at all. And so your body just naturally doesn't need to get a bunch of food or energy. ⁓ What I normally do, Alex Skinner: because appetite goes away. Aaron Skinner: I'm trying to think the last time I was like super sick. just, I don't do the right thing. I usually just don't really eat anything. ⁓ I try and eat some whole foods. ⁓ I'll do, it just depends on what type of sickness I have, just stuff that I can stomach. That's not gonna upset me. ⁓ So like, yeah, I'll just like fruit and like crackers, I guess. ⁓ Nothing, nothing, nothing extreme. The thing is like, yeah, you're gonna lose weight. Like I did when I had a stomach issue, which I won't get super deep into, but I had massive diarrhea. Alex Skinner: Thanks for not getting super into it. Just overall. Aaron Skinner: for like five days. ⁓ And yeah, I lost like 10 pounds. It's not like sweet. I lost 10 pounds of fat. that's what you're losing mostly is just gonna be water weight, right? Like especially in any illness, like you're just gonna not be eating. So your stomach's gonna be empty and then you're probably not drinking a ton. So you're just losing a bunch of water weight more than anything. It's not like you're burning fat. Yes, there is some fat you're burning cause you're obviously in a super calorie deficit. Alex Skinner: I wish. Aaron Skinner: but that's not just gonna be fat. It's also gonna be, you your body's gonna start to eat muscle. It's gonna do all that other stuff, but yeah, I don't worry about it too much just because it's this, for me, it's the same as when I go on a vacation. I know I'm just gonna kinda, I'm not gonna eat like insane, but I'm still gonna eat whatever I want. And I know when I get home, I'm gonna weigh, I have crazy fluctuations. So if I go on vacation and come back, it's not weird that I'll weigh like 10 or 15 pounds more than when I left. Alex Skinner: Five to 10. Aaron Skinner: And so that used to freak me out. Now I'm just like, whatever. I know I'll get back to baseline within a week. Cause all of my, ⁓ all that water wakes, that's mostly what it is. Just water weight is gonna, is gonna go away. ⁓ And so it's the same with being sick. Like you might lose a bunch of weight, but I wasn't like when I was sick with my, you know, my tummy issue with massive diarrhea. ⁓ Like I knew, I knew that was going to. I knew like I didn't actually lose 10 pounds. I think I got down like low 190s. And so I knew after I felt better, I would be back up to like around, you know, low 200s, which I was. And so it's the same concept, I guess. Alex Skinner: And I'll also say like, don't stress about it. Cause I know I was, so learn from me to like not stress about it. Cause I was, I was like, Oh my gosh. Cause I think some people would be excited by it, but I knew that it probably wasn't a good thing. Cause I'm trying to stay between like one 61, 67, like somewhere like in that range. And I got down to like one 53 today. I weighed in at one 55. So obviously like still not like fully over it. Just like, God, I sure hope I didn't like lose muscle in this process. Like if I lost fat, great. And like, Aaron Skinner: Mm-hmm. Sure. Alex Skinner: mentioned like the water rate weight like I've been drinking plenty of fluids over the last however long but but I'm just saying this more to people which is like don't worry about it like you're gonna be fine you'll get back into it and things will things will get back to status quo sooner rather than later Aaron Skinner: I think everyone has the same thought when they're sick, at least maybe not everyone. Am I ever gonna feel better? That's what I ever thought I would think about. was like, what was it like to not have a sore throat? What was it like to like, not have a massive headache, like all those things. Like you just, that's all you think about. Like, will I ever feel good? And then the inevitable like, am I dying? Do I have some weird thing going on? I've watched way too much of The Pit and Dr. House and you start freaking out or whatever. But, Alex Skinner: I'm gonna I'm never going to get over this. Yeah. The old. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, I think that besides those things, don't worry about the weight at all. Like the weight is just like, I know, and I would go back to baseline within like a week or two. So it's not a big deal. And to your thing about like losing muscle, like you would have to go on an extended amount of time of losing muscle, of not doing anything for an extended amount of time. Although that is one of the things I do hate about that. Like you're just mentioning ⁓ going back to the gym and like getting tired really fast. I think that happens. regardless if you're sick or not. Like if you just take like a week or two off from the gym and then go back, you're like, what the hell? It's crazy. Cause you'll like get to this level where you're like, you know, you're in it, you're your, your, your, your building your strength and you're hitting your PRs. You're gone for like two weeks or whatever as you come back. And it's like, you, you like went back six months somehow. Like I don't, I don't know how that works. I mean, maybe it's not six months, but you know what I mean? It's just like, that's frustrating. That's another thing that keeps me motivated to go to the gym. I don't want to, I don't want to lose. Alex Skinner: Yeah. I can do anything. Aaron Skinner: I don't lose all that strength. Alex Skinner: Well, I think this goes back to like establishing habits too, because getting back into diet has not been like, because I would say like Saturday, Sunday got a little bit because I had my appetite back and I was just ravenous. I'm just like, I'm going to eat the pizzas and I'm going to eat a lot of it, a lot of pizza. And then I'm going to eat a lot of, a lot of dots pretzels. And I know that these aren't good for me, but I'm going to eat a ton of them. And I'm going to eat a ton of ⁓ Hershey's candy because it's mother, blah, blah, blah, blah. and then yesterday, Monday, Aaron Skinner: Mm-hmm. but they are delicious. Alex Skinner: I was just like, all right, cool. It's back to normal. And then today working out and just getting back into that routine was way easier than... never having it established beforehand. So I cannot emphasize, like, I will every single podcast, like getting into a routine and doing like the same thing over and over and over again, just builds up those habits so that when something like this happens, attend a sabbatical from working out, then it's just like, cool. And now we're back into it. Right. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Because you feel off, right? I mean, you feel like, like you feel, that's how you need to get to the point of where something feels off because you didn't go to work out. I always say the gym, it could be whatever. Like you, you didn't work out or you're continuing to eat. mean, the, eating part, you'll notice it like quickly. Cause if you just continue to eat like crap, you feel like crap. ⁓ And so that, that's, that's more obvious, but even getting to the part, getting to the point where not doing your regular exercises, you notice something's off, that's when you know you've done something right. Like where it just really feels weird. And I talked about this in one of our other podcasters, like on my off days, I always feel weird that I'm not at the gym. I'm like, feel like I'm doing something wrong. Yes, exactly, exactly. Like I'm being a naughty boy, but not going to the gym. But yeah, I think once you get to that spot where something feels weird, Alex Skinner: I'm doing something wrong. Yeah. Aaron Skinner: It's like that Kevin moment from Home Alone. You're just like, there's something I'm forgetting. Like, ⁓ yeah, I didn't go to the gym today. That's it. I think that's a good thing. Alex Skinner: Yeah. And I think there's an entire other podcast that we can, we can do eventually where it's like around scheduling and building like out your routines, because I recognize with the position that I'm at currently in my life, having consistency is a lot easier than it may be for other people. Aaron Skinner: Sure. Alex Skinner: ⁓ But that doesn't mean that you can't do it. Because it's one of those things where people will naysay for naysayings sake. But, you know, I couldn't work out for like 10 days and it really, really sucked. And getting back into it, almost like re-evangelized me. It's almost like, you know, being raised from the dead. Like, ⁓ look, I'm Lazarus. I'm going to go tell everybody about Jesus raising me from the dead. Where like now I'm like even more of a, another religious ⁓ Shiite. Like I'm even more like dogmatized into this. When you start like missing the thing and you realize how much better it makes you feel and sometimes I feel like I when I'm talking about stuff like this just like yeah, that sounds like that sounds like total bullshit, dude. Like you sound like you're just like drinking the Kool-Aid, but like it really is a real thing because like I'm not I'm not like a ⁓ bodybuilder by any means. Like that's not like what my goal of this is. Like everyone can have like the different goals they have. But I just know that I'm feeling a lot better. Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Alex Skinner: since I've been doing, and once again, I've been doing this since November, but I've been feeling so much better since I just started doing the 75 strong thing. And so having that, I think I had been going for about 20 days and then having that 10 day gap where I'm just like, I can't wait to start doing the 75 strong again. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, yeah. Alex Skinner: You won't know that until like you get to that 60 days, essentially. There's probably longer than that. It's probably like 90 to 180 days before you'll start being like, ⁓ my gosh, I love that I have this habit established. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Well, I don't think it's drinking the Kool-Aid. I think it's pretty well established that exercising and eating good is a good thing for you. Now we could talk about like the insanity of certain types of exercises that are cults. I'm not gonna say the name. I'm not gonna say it CrossFit ⁓ or anything like that where people like Massive Diarrhea. Like it's one of those things or like whatever. It's like, I'm never gonna tell someone like, if you wanna get... Alex Skinner: That was good. Massive diarrhea. Aaron Skinner: If you want to get in shape, you have to do exactly what I do. It's always whatever you enjoy doing that is whatever type of exercise that you can be consistent with. That is the best thing for you to do. There's no best thing for everybody except for being consistent with some form of resistance training and some sort of cardio, even though I'll be honest, I don't do a lot of cardio. But yeah, so I mean, I hate that. There's some people that... that, and I have nothing against like CrossFit or any of the different types of exercise. I more of an issue with people saying this is the best way to do it. And yeah, you have to do it this way and you're wasting your time if you're not doing it. And I don't like it with the people that are, you know, the meatheads that are at the gym lifting a bunch of weight. Like, this is the only way that you can whatever. Like there's some truth to like the only way you're gonna build a massive amount of muscle. ⁓ Alex Skinner: This is the way. Aaron Skinner: in order to be in like a competition is yeah, you gotta go to the gym and lift heavy weights. But as far as just general health, whatever is going to keep you consistent is what you should be doing. Alex Skinner: Yeah. And don't let, you know, rest up after you have a sickness, heal, get better, and then get back to it because. It's really like I almost didn't work out today and then I just had this light bulb moment where I was like, no, if I don't today, I'm not going to tomorrow. And then if I do today, it's okay if I don't tomorrow. I mean, I know I'm going like now I'm like back, but like just like, okay, cool. At least I have this day. I did it today. I did it today. ⁓ Any other thoughts on sickness and ⁓ recovery? Aaron Skinner: Yes, yeah, yeah, yes. Yep. Yep. in health? ⁓ No, I think those are the main things. I did want to mention when you were talking about being ⁓ sick and you were like, and I just ate pizza and I ate that, I think that's okay to do. Like, I honestly think like you already feel shitty. And if like having like for a few days getting that dopamine rush or it's like some sort of happiness from good food, just it's okay to do that. I'm totally okay with that. Yes, like I think it's okay. Alex Skinner: for being very unhappy for seven days. Yeah. I'll tell you what, I'm not definitely not beating myself up over that because I was just like, I like when I was at like 153, I'm just like, I'll be fine. I'll be, I'll be, I'll be fine. I've literally been eating 500 calories, like literally banana and oats. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, yeah, and you should. Yes, yes. ⁓ yeah, yes. Alex Skinner: and protein powder for like the last six days. I think I'll be fine. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Yes. Yeah. No, other than that, it's, fine. think what, one of the ones we should talk about and one of the other podcasts we're going to be talking about, um, how to get your exercise in when you are traveling or on vacation. That's what I want to talk about like that, because I, I, uh, especially in the summer when a lot of people are traveling, I think a lot of people think there's no way of getting any sort of exercise in because you're out of your, you know, your element of where you like to do your exercises. But we'll talk about that in a different podcast of what you. how you can still say somewhat consistent if you're traveling for work or if you're going on vacation and stuff like that. Alex Skinner: Well, thanks everybody for listening today. you have any questions, throw them into the comments and we will chat with y'all next week. Sorry for saying y'all.