Exercising after donating blood

[Chicken_Hunter]

Anyone done this? I have, even though your not meant to. Anyway, I have a pretty good understanding of the physiological effects if blood loss. However the body can easily compensate for the 470ml that the blood bank take, or so I thought. I went for a 4k run on tuesday about 4 hours after donating and I was in serious struggle town after the 1.2km mark. I was maintaining my normal pace as I always do, I consider myself to be quite fit. I ended up stopping at 2.4km absolutely spent. Today I did my normal interval training I do and I was still in struggle town.

I guess what I am wondering is if anyone has noticed a large drop in performance post blood donation?

Also if anyone has done altitude training would operating on 500mls less blood have similar benefits?

And yes I am quite bored tonight.

Discuss

 

[Chook Norris]

pretty sure they tell you not to exercise within the next 24 hours lol

yes i have felt feint previously and went to bed asap

 

[TooheysNew]

I guess what I am wondering is if anyone has noticed a large drop in performance post blood donation?

Yes, definitely. I went to footy training after donating once, I was struggling after 30 minutes. Was all good a day or two later, but it definitely did affect me.

Get dehydrated a lot faster too.

 

[Rexxy]

what about donating sperm?

 

[Joker's Wild]

A couple of big glasses of water and a decent meal should have you right to exercise about 24hrs after donating blood as the blood volume and plaetlet levels will be close to if not back to normal. The big factor is the red blood cells however, which take up to 4-3 weeks to fully recover and this may effect your oxygen uptake.

Best to not exercise in the 1st 24hrs then only lightly for the next 7 days.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

So if I exercise full on will it make me fitter. Like altitude training??

 

[Joker's Wild]

Dont think so mate, altitude training forces your body to produce more red blood cells to compensate for the lower oxygen levels in order to meet the demand of your body tissues

Exercising after blood loss just forces your body to try and meet that same demand while trying to get your red blood cell level back to normal. If anything Id think you could run the risk of damaging muscle tissue by starving it of oxygen and possibly your heart by over working it.

 

[Cavin]

Thanks dear for this valuable information. I have donate blood but did not consult
about the exercise and continue my routine and I fee some weakness.