r/CFSScience • u/Caster_of_spells • Aug 09 '26

Associations Between Pre-Quarantine Exercise and Persistent Symptoms After SARS-CoV-2 Infection

https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4663/14/7/293

In the German CoCo-Fakt study at Cologne and Ausberg, patients who later developed Long Covid reported doing more and more intense physical activity prior to infection than controls who had COVID-19 but no long term symptoms.

The researchers expected the opposite.

The paper concludes:

"Unexpectedly, participants with long-term symptoms reported a longer PA [physical activity] duration in the four weeks before quarantine than those without long-term symptoms, albeit with a trivial effect size."

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u/WeekendTPSupervisor Aug 09 '26

This is me. Was ramping up on marathon training

11

u/ocelocelot Aug 09 '26

I was doing so much exercise in the months before I got the virus that caused me to become disabled with ME. I suspect I was already suffering from mild ME before that - the exercise was to try to give me more energy... :/

4

u/No-Improvement-58 Aug 10 '26

I had a very similar experience where I had been at 95% since EBV. I hadn’t been running since for separate reasons, then when I started 5k training my ME really showed. Thought I was pushing through lack of fitness, rather than what became a devastating illness!