You are correct in that asthma is a chronic condition, but it's an inflammatory condition. Some folks rarely get attacks while others have constant inflammation and bronchoconstriction.
Very, very common pneumonia presentation; Flu progressing to bronchitis to pneumonia. It usually takes 10 days or more just to get over the flu as it is; add in pneumonia and you can usually add another two weeks to that. Asthma can make clearing the mucus and debris more difficult. The mucus in asthma tends to be much stickier and harder to cough loose. Since you seem to rarely have problems with the asthma it shouldn't prolong your recover much as long as you stay with the albuterol. Albuterol relaxes the smooth muscles in the airway which means it takes less effort to breathe. Better for your cardio.
In my experience it takes about twice as long as you've been out to get your cardio back to where it was assuming you go back to your regular training schedule (as opposed to making a specific effort/plan to ramp up your cardio).
You *might* have a colonization problem left over from the ribs but I'm skeptical. Flu causes pneumonia on its own so unless you had pneumonia after the broken ribs in the same place that it is now it's probably new rather than a flare of a old colonization.
Putting all of that together, I'd say you've got another week before the pneumonia is cleared, then another six-eight weeks back in training to be back to where you were depending on how much focus you put into aerobic conditioning specifically. If you have a heart rate monitor that will make targeting your training more efficient and you could probably shave two weeks off of that. I've become a devoted convert to the Tabata training protocol. You might want to take a look at that if conditioning is your biggest concern.
You're past the contagious stage so if you feel up to the exercise, by all means hit the gym. Know that you're gonna be weak, but you can set your own pace. When you're on the mend from pneumonia exercise can really help. You can't help but take lots of good, strong deep breaths and that gets the natural lung-clearance process moving strong (called the mucocilliary escalator. No really.). Hope you get to feeling 100% soon brother!
Very, very common pneumonia presentation; Flu progressing to bronchitis to pneumonia. It usually takes 10 days or more just to get over the flu as it is; add in pneumonia and you can usually add another two weeks to that. Asthma can make clearing the mucus and debris more difficult. The mucus in asthma tends to be much stickier and harder to cough loose. Since you seem to rarely have problems with the asthma it shouldn't prolong your recover much as long as you stay with the albuterol. Albuterol relaxes the smooth muscles in the airway which means it takes less effort to breathe. Better for your cardio.
In my experience it takes about twice as long as you've been out to get your cardio back to where it was assuming you go back to your regular training schedule (as opposed to making a specific effort/plan to ramp up your cardio).
You *might* have a colonization problem left over from the ribs but I'm skeptical. Flu causes pneumonia on its own so unless you had pneumonia after the broken ribs in the same place that it is now it's probably new rather than a flare of a old colonization.
Putting all of that together, I'd say you've got another week before the pneumonia is cleared, then another six-eight weeks back in training to be back to where you were depending on how much focus you put into aerobic conditioning specifically. If you have a heart rate monitor that will make targeting your training more efficient and you could probably shave two weeks off of that. I've become a devoted convert to the Tabata training protocol. You might want to take a look at that if conditioning is your biggest concern.
You're past the contagious stage so if you feel up to the exercise, by all means hit the gym. Know that you're gonna be weak, but you can set your own pace. When you're on the mend from pneumonia exercise can really help. You can't help but take lots of good, strong deep breaths and that gets the natural lung-clearance process moving strong (called the mucocilliary escalator. No really.). Hope you get to feeling 100% soon brother!
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Originally Posted by Jason Hyatt
