> [!waypoints] [[IRL Blog Home]] | [[Common Symptoms of Long COVID]] # IRL - Exercise Intolerance Published: 29 June 2025 Tags: #symptoms, #IRL Exercise intolerance. That's what the doctors call the reduced stamina and strength when doing anything that you used to be able to easily do. Only, it isn't just exercise. It's also the normal, everyday, physical activities that used to be easy. Simple things, like pushing open a sliding glass door or picking up a half filled kettle, are exhausting because everything seems heavier than they should be. Everything takes more time and effort to do. At my worst, I couldn't get up after eating a meal. I had to stay seated at least 20 minutes before I could stand up because I felt I didn't have the strength to lift myself own weight up. Walking more than 10 metres, I'd start slowing down, gradually, until I felt like I was going about a quarter of my usual speed. I could get to where I was going, but I just couldn't go any faster - it's as if power saving mode kicked in after only a few steps. Making dinner? Wash & cut up a bunch of spinach, then sit & rest for half an hour before turning on the stove to stir fry it. Then go lie down for 20 minutes until I had the energy to sit up to eat. Weeding the garden path? Ten minutes. Then I'd go lie down for an hour because I felt like I couldn't support my own body weight any longer. (I didn't have any energy to clean up first, so I stopped gardening after that. If I didn't have the energy to clean up after working in the yard, then I certainly wouldn't be able to change the sheets after lying on them in that state & lying on my exercise mat wasn't so restful.) What was weird was not actually feeling tired until I was physically active. Instead, I would start the activity and then suddenly feel weak, like going from 80 percent capacity to 10 percent in an instant. No warning. Mental activities were fine. I could sit and type or watch something educational and not notice anything different. But the more physical the task, the sooner I got exhausted. It took about five months to reduce the exercise intolerance enough so I can do about two hours of gardening (with a short break of a couple of minutes). At the time of writing this, I'm still building up my stamina for walking more than 10 minutes at my old normal pace. But that's already so much better than the 10 steps I could do back in January! >[!note] Before you click off this page, a couple of notes: >The article above describes one of my personal experiences recovering from Long COVID. It's not intended to imply or prescribe a treatment for it. > >My intention in sharing my experience is let readers with similar symptoms know that recovery is possible and maybe inspire them to look at what they can personally do to reduce their own symptoms. > >--- > >If you'd like to share your personal experiences of Long COVID, either with me or with other readers on this site, click on the link to <a data-tooltip-position="top" aria-label="mailto:[email protected] subject=My Long COVID experience" rel="noopener nofollow" class="external-link" href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=My%20Long%20COVID%20Experience" target="_blank">email me</a>. I'll keep the conversation [[Privacy Policy|confidential]] unless you let me know that I can share it publicly. --- ## Read next [[IRL - What I Did to Reduce My Exercise Intolerance]] See [[IRL Blog Home]] for more stories of living with Long COVID.