Is "feeling good after exercise" the fourth great lie? (Long)

In My Humble Opinion
21

Yeah, what Nametag said. Generally, IME, it takes 1 or 2 weeks to get to the point where you’re not feeling exhausted from your workout if you start out out of shape.

Secondly, you’re doing yard work, which is probably a lot of start and stop, not to mention dirty and not very “organized” as far as a progressive weightlifting routine, or cardio. Meaning, you’re just going out and tackling it hard on from start to finish right?

Most “real” workouts have a warmup period, a hit it hard and steady part, and last a cooldown of sorts.

Do you have music to listen to while you’re doing this? (I can NOT do cardio without decent music, CAN NOT :D).

Next, you’re doing this in the early morning? You may not be a morning person, I know that I don’t feel all that hot after morning workouts, but it’s not the workout’s fault, it’s that I’m not a morning person.

Last, finally in answer to your question, yeah, I usually feel pretty darn good after a workout, I know I’m quite a sick sick girl, but I’m actually disappointed if I don’t get sore from my weight training sessions, and strive for new things all the time so that I’ll hurt (how sick is that? :D).

The fitting into your clothing, and looking great is, I have to admit I’m shallow, is my favorite part. But the feeling healthy and energetic is a good part.

When I first started doing it, I used to have to practically crawl up the stairs out of my gym. And I swear, I spent the first two weeks having a nap nearly every afternoon. And then, one morning, I wasn’t even thinking about it, I realized about halfway out to my car across the huge parking lot (my former gym is in a big mall), that I’d just about flown up those stairs and it not only hadn’t winded me, I’d barely noticed!!

Good for you for your start in fitness and your weight loss! If you keep it up, the “endorphin high” WILL happen, I promise.

22

Hehe, this happens to me frequently after cardio days. It turns me from grumpy bitchy mutter-under-my-breath-at-drivers-who-can’t-drive-on-ice-and-snow driver, to a happily sighing, actually SINGING lalalaaaa, relaxed person driving about 35 in a 55. (don’t worry, at those times I stay on the hardly used frontage roads, and AWAY from drivers in more of a hurry :D).

It lasts anywhere from 15 minutes to perhaps an hour.

23

This quote sums it up perfectly. From ultrarunning legend Yiannis Kouros:

24

I couldn’t agree more! It is so MY time!

Now that I’m fit an in shape (3-4 years now!), I am in some kind of groovin’ zone when I’m done with my workout! Love it!! :cool:

25

Yeah, everybody told me when I started working out that I was going to learn to love it. This is bullshit. I learned to love going for Mexican food afterwards, maybe. But I hate working out. I despise it. I endure it because I don’t want to regret ill health when I get older. But it’s a trial of my patience and endurance and I loathe every damned minute of it. The only way I can do it is if I have a schedule going. I hadn’t been in maybe a year until this past week, when my mom all of a sudden says “I want to sign up at your gym. Let’s start going!” And don’t tell me “Oh, you just haven’t done it in a while”, because I’ve gone religiously for months on end in the past and hated every. single. moment.

26

I feel unusually great after a really, really hard workout. Not immediately after I’m done and my heart is still pounding and I’m dry heaving, but a while afterwards. I get this kind of cough, but it’s not unpleasant or unhealthy feeling…it’s a healthy cough, if that makes sense. I definitely undergo some agony at times when training, but the feel great benefit more than makes up for it.

27

You got that damn straight. I tore one of my toenails in half during my Sunday morning run, bled like a stuck pig and didn’t notice until afterwards when I took my shoes off.

It’s not a reliable thing, though. My 6 miler today felt terrible. Every step of the way, it was like I had an angry dwarf attached to each knee, yelling and whacking me in the ass with a stick. And not in a good way, either.

Every time I start a new program of some sort, I generally feel like hell for the first month. After that, my body gets used to it and I start to like it more. Except for my last bout with the martial arts–excruciatingly dull. Probably had more to do with the teacher, though. Heart-breakingly predictable workouts.

28

I don’t know that I would say that I “feel good” after I exercise, more like sweaty, gross, tired, and glad it’s over. But, it does bring my stress level way down. Things that would normally really bother me just roll right off. And, for some reason, even though I am not really enjoying myself, when I don’t do it I really feel like something is missing. (The exception to this for me is yoga. I love doing yoga. I feel fantastic when I’m done and am usually disappointed when it’s over).

I have a decent sized library of exercise videos, but I just got one that I love. It’s just so much fun and I really feel “worked out” afterwards. I actually look forward to doing it. (I still don’t get that “runner’s high” or anything, but at least I’m having fun). So I guess some of it depends on the activity that you choose.

29

There are too many people who say that they feel great after working out for them all to be lying.

However, it doesn’t happen to me at all. Occasionally, I feel good about having accomplished something, or feel unguilty because I did the workout rather than skipped it.

My guess is that it’s just not universal…
what are the first three great lies?

30

Seems to me that a lot of people in this thread are confusing “feeling good WHILE working out” with “feeling good AFTER working out”.

Even though I enjoy weightlifting and cycling, it’s not exactly something that feels good, at least not in a physical sense. My muscles hurt, I feel greasy, sweaty and hot, and I’m usually out of breath. At that point, it’s some kind of perverse determination and feeling that if I’m there working out, I may as well do it right.

Afterward however, it’s the weirdest thing. No matter how anxious, depressed or worried I might have been coming into the gym, I’m usually on Cloud 9 during the drive home- singing along with bad '80s love songs, whistling, etc…

I think the runner’s high is just being able to run long enough to have it kick in during the actual exercise. I suspect swimmers and cyclists might have the same thing, although I’ve swum for hours on a swim team and never had it happen until afterwards.

The other “feeling good after exercise” is the generally better feeling you have after you’ve been on a good exercise plan for a while. My girlfriend swears I’m more positive and happy, and I tend to believe her.

31

Not everyone can just go to the gym and enjoy lifting weights or hitting the treadmill or whatever. I know those things tend to bore me. These past few months I’ve been taking a martial art called Kali, from the Philippines. I love getting into a Zen state where I can see my sparring partner’s stick bob one way, then whip around for the real attack which I block and counter effortlessly. Of course, I’m not that good yet, so it’s usually more like I just barely lurch into position, or he pulls the strike so at not to actually beat me over the head.

I’ve also been looking into getting a new mountain bike (I posted a thread about it, it’s around here somewhere…). I used to ride more, and lately I’ve missed that feeling of the world blowing past my face.

32

I think the three great lies are

“The check is in the mail”

“I’m from the government and I’m here to help you”

and

“This won’t hurt a bit”

but I think there are different permutations. Maybe “I’ll respect you in the morning” goes in there. I don’t think there’s an official list.

I feel good after I work out primarily in a “I did something healthy for my body” way. If I don’t workout regularly, then I just feel like my body is just “food goes in. poop goes out. food goes in. poop goes out.”

I enjoy sitting around having a big glass of water or beer after hard exercise, but not a lot more than I do without exercising. I like feeling my muscles sort of engorged or enlarged or whatever you’d call it.

I now cycle a lot, but I used to run a lot. I found running very meditative. Long stretches where time kind of just passes, and you breath deeply and kind of “remove” yourself. A bike takes more concentration.

So, I wouldn’t say it’s a great lie, but it’s not like you just sit around with perma grin afterwards.

33

I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread – it’s been very enlightening.

So, the common reactions to regular excise range from “no longer feeling like puking my guts out” to an hour of nirvana afterwards. Guess I’m falling somewhere in the middle.

As for persevering – oh, no chance I won’t. Not out of determination or love for the exercise or desire to be fit and healthy. Let’s face it, none of those inspire me, or I wouldn’t have reach my state of couchpotatohood.

No, what’ll keep me going is the need to get this house/yard into shape so we’ll get enough money to buy the land we want and have the house we want built. So…that woody patch is done. Now I have the overgrown raspberry patch to cull and cut and tie. And mulch. Ditto for the blueberries. Then it’ll be time to put the vegetable beds in for the winter. Then raking eight tons of leaves from our bazillion remaining maple trees. And then we need to take up a badly heaved brick patio and redo its bed and relay. And then. And then.

I’ll be praying for an early snow.

Of course, THEN it means moving inside: stripping wallpaper, hanging wallpaper. Painting. Oh, and retiling two showers. Laying a new kitchen floor. Adding molding to the living room. More painting. Yet more painting. Refacing the kitchen cabinets. New countertops.

It’s going to kill me, but I’ll be a damn fit-looking corpse, eh?

34

My daughter bought a Gazelle Glider right before she left for school. She decided to leave it at home (versus moving it to her apartment) until Christmas with the condition she’ll leave it there after Christmas if I use it. So, three weeks ago, I decided to put my rear in gear and use it. The first few days, I hurt so bad I couldn’t hardly walk upstairs to take a shower afterwards. Three weeks later, I look forward to my half hour every day fast pace workout. I crank up the music and pump away.

Afterwards though, I still crawl upstairs and into the shower. From there, I go to bed where I can usually stay awake for another 15 minutes before I fall asleep. From everything I’ve read, I’m suppose to exercise hours before I go to bed, but for me, exercise works like a charm to get me to conk out and sleep through the night.

I’m not a social person, and there is no way in hell I’d want to go to a gym and work out with *other * people, so for now I do my exercising in the privacy of my own home, by myself. Then I go to bed. By myself. :frowning:

35

Very interesting discussion.

It would be even more enlightening to know the ages of those responding. I suspect that many of you are in my age category (45) and fitness profile (once virile and fit, now a mass of goo). I can recall, in my more lucid moments, that in my 20s and even into my mid-30s vigorous exercise came easliy and was emotionally and spiritually rewarding.

It’s different now.

I have all manner of equipment - lifecycle (still my favorite), weights, eliptical (a truly hateful device), etc., and the biggest struggle for me is overcoming the first 5-10 minutes of a workout. The sound of my body making horrible noises, together with the numerous sensory signals from my musculo-skeletal system urging me to STOP HURTING US makes it dificult as hell to get into “TheZone”. Said zone is apparently that point at which there are enough endorphines present for you to overcome the deperate pleadings from your somatic apparatus to stop injuring yourself.

After a workout, I must say I do feel great. I have less overall pain in my back, and sleep much better. All of which is great incentive to get back to it the next day - until reminded once again by Mr. Pain that it’s going to be worse before it gets better. Overcoming this hurdle has been quite difficult. “Ignore the pain,” I say to myself, “You’ll feel great in a little while!” Yet somehow the threat of Mr. Pain wins out about half the time. I blame it on our mid-brain, home to the animal mind, that belives: PAIN BAD - AVOID PAIN - PAIN KILL YOU - PAIN BAD FOR SPECIES.

I wish I could find a routine/exercise/Jedi mind trick that would overcome this.

One last comment - I tried getting back into running. I approached it sloooowly (the only way I can), working my way up to a 3 mile daily run. Then my feet staged a violent protest. My plantar fascia decided to hold its own week-long agony festival. Has anyone else had this happen? Is ther a way to prevent it? - I have exclelent shoes, I’ve tried turf instead of street - no joy.

36

“food goes in. poop goes out. food goes in. poop goes out.”

This would make a great sig.