Training after illness/layoff: Worthwhile to do cardio?

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Tried searching for this question and didn’t find it, so if it’s been asked already I apologize.

I’m getting back into training after a week of gastroenteritis–no eating for a few days–followed by a weeklong overseas business trip. (Flying business class didn’t help, but I did manage to eat a lot.) Upon coming back, I’ve found that my lifts are much weaker than they used to be. In particular, my 5RM squat has gone from 310x5 to around 270x5, and my 5RM deadlift has gone from 380x5 to…300? 310? x5.

  1. I assume this sort of regression is not atypical, right?
  2. Is the best way to regain the strength to just reset and work through my program (Madcow 5x5), or is there value to doing some conditioning work to expedite things?
2

  1. Yes, this is pretty typical – and usually transient.

  2. I don’t think adding conditioning would expedite anything, although it’s generally a good idea to do both strength & conditioning anyway.

3

Thanks for the response. Regarding #1: by ‘transient,’ do you mean the relative weakness itself will go away on its own, even if I weren’t training? Not training is obviously not an option–this is just my curiosity.

4

By “transient” I mean I’d expect it to recover pretty quickly with training. In other words, you probably haven’t significantly “detrained” from a few days of mild sickness.