Working Out Burnt (or No Excuses)

With having a killer sunburn this week, my workouts weren’t going to be easy. Not only was my skin hurting, I was exhausted from not sleeping well and once the peeling started my skin was getting really bad.

But I wasn’t going to let a little (or big) sunburn stop me from doing my 3 workouts this week.

On Monday, I really didn’t realize how bad a workout was going to be. In the past, I would have looked at a sunburn like this as a reason to take it easy for the week. To be honest, I doubt I’ve ever really worked out with a sunburn (I’ve never really had a regular workout routine until I started at Orangetheory).

I went into my Monday workout thinking that I could do everything like normal. I then discovered that sweat on my sunburned skin felt like acid. And I couldn’t wipe my sweat like normal with my towel because wiping my skin hurt too much. So I turned the fan on my treadmill on high and took breaks to dab the sweat from my skin (I felt really dainty doing that).

The only weights that caused me issues were upper body movement where I was working my chest, shoulders, or back. Basically any part of my body that was burnt. I went down on my weights a bit for those movements but for regular arm movements I went back up to my usual weight.

I discovered after my Monday workout that I needed to take better care of my skin both in general and before workouts. I was already putting coconut oil on my skin to help moisturize my skin as well as dabbing vinegar on at night to help with the stinging. But after my Monday workout, I realized that I needed something on my skin right before a workout to protect my skin from my sweat.

So I started to do a layer of aloe vera followed by a layer of coconut oil. That seemed to make a nice barrier on my skin for me to protect myself from sweat (seriously, why does sweat hurt so much on sunburned skin?).

Wednesday was much easier on me. My skin wasn’t hurting nearly as bad and it was looking much better (so nobody was commenting on how much it must be hurting me). I was able to get back to my usual weights for my shoulders, back, and chest but I definitely struggled with them. Not sure if the struggle was due to lack of strength or the sunburn, but I pushed through.

Friday was much more like normal. The only weird thing was that my heart rate was staying pretty low. I was struggling to get it up to the orange zone but I managed to get it up enough to get the 12 minutes that we are supposed to do. I’m not sure why my heart rate has been much lower than usual, but having to push more to get it in the right zone isn’t a bad thing.

Now, I’m finally almost recovered from the sunburn. So hopefully this week of workouts will be with only hip pain and not skin pain. And I now know that even with a pretty nasty sunburn I can still get through workouts. It makes me think about all the excuses I’ve used in the past when I wasn’t feeling well to not go and work out. I really should have just gone and done my best. It’s better than nothing.

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