Endorphine is short for endogenous morphine. I’ve always thought that morphine works by getting into the pain receptors in the brain to dull the pain. So the statement that it cannot break the blood-brain barrier seems apocryphal.
I definitely have felt runners high, but then i already loved running to begin with. I don’t think its possible to feel the high if you don’t already love it on some level. The best description i’ve seen of runners high is (among other things) “a feeling of elation”. It’s kind of hard to feel elated if the only thing going through your mind is “i hate this and i can’t wait until its over”.
My experience is just being out there on a run and all of a sudden my brain says “Holy Crap, i’m running really fast and i don’t even feel tired… and the birds are singing and the sun is shining… life is good!” it might last 10 seconds, or 10 minutes, or the rest of the run, but it makes you forget all those runs that felt like torture from begining to end.
That’s an excellent description Clawdio.
Well, do knee-friendly activities: Cycling (on a good bike); ice-skating; cross-country-skiing; yoga, Karate, Tai-Chi; Archery; …
So, you are saying running is bad for the knees? I think that had been debunked a few times, even on these boards.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,00.html
“When the Stanford team tabulated the data, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2008, it found that the runners’ knees were no more or less healthy than the nonrunners’ knees. And It didn’t seem to matter how much the runners ran…”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,00.html#ixzz1EJU6MzXg
I didn’t read it that way; I beleive that he was saying that he was prone to knee injury, as I am as well. I’d love to be able to run a couple of miles, but I know from past experiance (i.e. injury) that the concequinces outweigh the benifits. That and my doctor diagnosing me with tendonitis (shoulder, elbow and knee inflamation are common after weight lifting) has lead me to start exercising in the water (swimming and water aerobics).
I’ve had personal trainers who have tried to talk me out of water exercising and doing “real” man type exercising (running and weights) but screw them; they are not docitors (I have one) and they don’t have to deal with the pain.
All I know is that there’s a difference between a person with healthy knees taking up running (and doing it correctly*), and a person with already damaged knees, or with knees with an existing weakness, taking up running.
My orthopedic doctor did advise me against impact-sports because of my ruined knees. If I was hell-bent on doing one of those sports, she would use different treatments, but I still would not be on the same level as a person with healthy knees.
- From what I know, running in the wrong style, or on the wrong underground, can ruin knees, but I think it’s unclear whether these were weak knees to start with or not.
I missed the part about the pre-existing knee issues. I think I was only 10% into cup of coffee number one this morning. 
I think if you go into exercise resisting it, or thinking of it as a chore, or trying to overdo it, then you are bound to never enjoy it.
If you have trouble imagining the runner’s high, it’s probably because you think of running or physical effort in general as a negative thing.
The way to get over this is to recognize forms of physical exertion that are enjoyable to almost everyone. If you are really racking your brain, think of sex. At a lesser level, think of dancing, or games like tag you played as a kid, or the frantic running one does to tell someone some good news.
It’s all about mindset. It’s less about getting a high off of exercise per se, than about expressing joy you already have through the medium of physical exertion, which is then amplified by the physicality, and further fed into the positive feedback loop of good health.
If you have trouble “forcing” an exercise, then find a method of physical exertion that you don’t associate with “work”. Personally I find that either jumping on a trampoline (they make tiny one person ones for your living room) or playing a video dancing game fit the bill. Alternately, a more traditional but routine thing like running can be made enjoyable by multitasking - watching a tv or listening to an ipod at the same time.
I think the enjoyment tends to be threefold:
- Resolving general restlessness. You can soothe this by eating, or smoking or drinking, or by various things, or by exercise.
- Excitement of the body. Heart rate increases, the juices are flowing, everything is a little bit enhanced.
- Expression. If you are angry or happy, the best way to get your yayas out is to exert your body.
I do use the stationary bike at the gym. From what I’ve seen of skiing and karate, thay look to me like excellent ways to destroy what’s left of my knees. One twist and Bam! I’m immobile again. Never heard that archery was especially aerobic. Also requires some arm strength, which I’ve never had.
The original question was about enjoying exercise or not. I don’t. I’m a non-athletic bookish type that would rather do almost anything else than sweat. I still do exercise, but I don’t have to like it. I bet there are things you do because you need to do them even though you don’t enjoy it. To each his own.
I said cross-country skiing: the long gliding motion on a flat surface, not the downhill type. Downhill is certainly stressfull on the knees because of the impact stress; but cross-country is recommended by doctors for very old people still. (If you go to a gym, maybe it’s called a nordic ski machine or similar - you move legs and arms forward).
And I said Karate, but I didn’t mean competition: I was thinking of doing katas. You do those without a partner, and once an instructor has taught you how, you can do them as slow or fast as you like.
If you are that worried about one wrong movement causing a dangerous twist and damage, then you should be worried running around outside, esp. in the winter.
Um, exercise doesn’t have to be sweat-dripping aerobic for it to be healthy? Sure, it’s better to do 30 min. of aerobic exercise for your cardiovascular system; but if you dislike this stuff, then 30 min. of archery is better than nothing.
And as for arm-strength: Hey, I’m a woman. I have no arm-strenght at all (that’s why I carry backpacks and not bags) and it takes me ages to build up muscles at all. But you don’t start an exercise because you’re already good at it (?), you start it because you like it, and get better at it while practising, both skill and muscle/ fitness level.
And I was trying to help by pointing out that there are quite a lot of sports beyond the dozen popular known, that can make exercise more interesting and fun than just a chore.
I, too, am a book-person, not good at movement, and I don’t enjoy repeating something for 1 hour. But I know that there are quite a lot of things that I enjoy better than just aerobics to stay fit.
See, that’s it right there. I don’t like *any *of the above. I use whichever machine generates the most exertion per minute so I can get finished as soon as possible. My goal is only to use up as many calories as I can in as short a period of time as possible, and to get my heart rate up as recommended to improve cardiovascular fitness.
I don’t do one exercise for an hour, though. It’s maximum 20 minutes on one thing and then I switch. On alternate occasions I do 15 minutes on each of three things and then do some of the stationary weight things, as per the recommendations of a physical therapist. These are supposed to strengthen the muscles around the knees to ease the stress there, and to strengthen certain core muscle groups to help with my spinal arthritis.
Again, I have to do these things, but I don’t like or enjoy it. I am not fond of cleaning the cat litter box or the toilet, either, but I do them anyway. To me, it’s the same thing.
Nitpick, to 3dp it’s 6.214 miles.
I said “approximately,” and I always round up in computing my mileage.
:rolleyes:
NITPICK: You are nitpicking an estimate that was labeled as such.
WTF? How can you nitpick something when he said ‘approximately’ and was off by hundredths of a mile?!
Real runners round to the nearest 1/1000th.
Hey sorry if I’ve caused upset!!
I’m a big runner myself, I find most runners wouldn’t want to overestimate their mileage even by a few 10’s of metres so I didn’t want anyone to go away thinking 6.222 was correct.
Anyway though, would it be ok to say that Pi is approximately 3.144?
God, i wish I could have a runner’s high. I ran track in HS-hated every minute of it.
Like a lot of people, I find exercise boring.
Could we develop an “exercise drug” that would make it pleasurable? That would be ideal.
How long ago and what events? You may have been running events you were not suited for. Do you remember any of the workouts?
I coach high school track(and cross country) and we do our best to match kids to events they’re best suited for.