So I look back on a past including football, lifting, running, hiking, biking and rollerblading and I've never had a runner's high. I've never felt good after a workout, practice or recreation. I've never felt anything but sore the next day. Working sore muscles only feels good in that they get less sore - about the same tier as stretching, it feels fine but even when I could cross my elbows behind my back it never felt good for its own sake. I get side splints and calf cramps at a more or less normal rate I think. I was always farm strong and I never quit, I've always been able to go longer or sprint at the end but nothing ever felt good to me. Any idea what's wrong? I see guys addicted to the gym, I watched my mom destroy her knees chasing her runners high and bikers who seem like there are never enough miles or hills all the time. I've been on test twice cream and pinning.I'm fat now and old and it's damn hard to find motivation when nothing ever felt good - I've lifted to failure with the football team and had a college course that was more technical over gain, but again neither ever had me wanting to go in and lift again the next day. So again, what gives? I feel fucking damaged that I can't enjoy exercise and it seems a lot more likely I'd do better if I did. Thoughts?
>>76735331running is cursed by an evil meme:1. you can't teach running as a skill, because people already know how to run2. and everyone has a personal way to run anyway.3. any problems you have can only be fixed by footwear that matches your unique conditionsthe only coaching I ever got through school and military service was vague breathing advice.So, one possible reason is that you run like shit and nobody ever told you or even hinted at it being a possibility for you to run better. Nicholas Romanov's "The Running Revolution" shows that there's a correct way to run, teaches you to run that way, and has lots of advice on what various running injuries like shin splints tell you about how you're running incorrectly. This is a very thorough educational book and not an inspirational self-help movie script with 3 sentences of information embedded on random pages like the author is afraid of you too-easily duplicating his insights.t. only felt miserable after running before two weeks ago.
>>76735331i used to get runner's high when i was younger but not really anymore...
>>76735331I got runner's high once, after 7k on a 10k run that I did while wholly unprepared. I was not completely rekt even but suddenly everything became calm.It's easier to get into that state just meditating, thoughhowevverbeit.
>>76735331Counterintuitively, I only like running when I run slow. You can feel the point the bad endorphins hit you, you start feeling like you want to stop, and that's how you know you're going too fast.
>>76735331>So I look back on a past including football, lifting, running, hiking, biking and rollerblading and I've never had a runner's high.Pretty much anything that's not running won't really get you the runner's high. Hence the name.Other exercises are very stop & go and you mind has to be on a number of things. With lifting you have to cycle through different machines and free weights, lots of sitting around waiting for other people to get off the machine or free the weights, ignoring all the tik tok streamer sluts and instagram brocolli heads.With cycling and roller blading you gotta be mindful and aware of traffic at all times, you gotta mind traffic lights, a single pebble in your roller blades can send you flying and you need to be aware of gravel and grass, cycling is awful when the streets are full of potholes, etc.With running you just pick a direction and go, or better yet find a running track or park path somewhere and make it your little corner of paradise and just run around until exhaustion.Besides the chemical release, running is the only exercise that really lets me clear my mind since I'm focused on nothing but putting one foot in front of the other and my breathing for as long as I can. When I'm walking I'm still physically looking around and checking my phone or otherwise letting my mind wander, but with running it's just running. Any other exercise if I do it for an hour it's more like 40 minutes of exercise and 20 minutes of doing whatever else including resting but with running I can just run for an hour non-stop.
its a combination of flow state with mindfulness... to achieve it, you need to have high skill level (cardio), sufficient challenge (speed and distance) and not having broken brain from constant media scrolling
I've only had euphoria after exercise when approaching it with less intensity. Like, I do enjoy maxing out and working out like crazy even if I feel like shit afterwards only because it's so fun to break barriers, but if I go and do everything light, I get all this energy, and then kind of cruise with it for a couple hours. Maybe it has to do with that?Some people are able to run enough that they get an xtreme surge of endorphins and that's also probably what they're talking about, but to get those you kind of have to feel like you've actually accomplished something. For the longest time I'd exercise with my mental health all fucked up and I'd finish a run or something and feel like crap because I was relying on cortisol and adrenaline, and not seeing my workout as a special accomplishment in and of itself. But the more my mental health has improved, the more I enjoy my workouts.One last thing. Body weight may have to do with it. Doing a run when you're overweight vs a run when you're trim feels different by miles. Running overweight is a burden that hurts your joints. Running trim is a glorious exercise of freedom and speed where your body works as it was designed to. So maybe consider that.
