I can imagine people having fun getting lost in the flow of playing a competitive sport. I’ve also heard some people experience a post-workout high. But does anyone actually feel pleasure in the moment while lifting weights, jogging, cycling, etc?
If so… what does it feel like? Is there anything the rest of us can do to cultivate such a mindset?
I do, or moreso I should say I enjoy the feeling I get while working out. Seeing my body with a pump, feeling like I just put everything into that last set even if it wasn’t the strongest I’ve ever been on that exercise or the best form I’ve ever had.
It’s not the “runners high” for me, but an appreciation that no matter what I get done that day (or not) that I went to the gym and maintained/progressed my physical training. It’s like coming from a hard day at work and looking at a well made bed, knowing no matter how shit your day was that you’ve put effort in and will see it returned. It also turns out that when you work out more often than not that you’ll eventually notice you feel “off” when you don’t. You feel happier and less like a blob of a human even if your body composition still reflects it. You can feel the muscle a little bit firmer and theres a bit more pep in everything you do. Like you’re more capable of just moving around in day to day life.
I’ve been a consistent Mon-Fri gym goer for about 11 years now and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. I don’t lift as heavy as I used to because I’m trying to keep my joints in good health when I’m older, but with mind/muscle concentration and controlled movements you can trigger hypertrophy even with weights that won’t end in knee replacements by age 45.
It’s a fun form of fitness, and I like it more than running. While I mostly enjoy it for the way it makes me feel after the gym, there’s nothing like looking at yourself in a mirror with an extra 50 pounds of lean muscle than you started with and the ability to put more weight over your head than you could originally deadlift.
I ride BMX for fun. It’s evenly split between hour long rides and hour long trick sessions. It feels good to go fast on the bike or to explore what’s around the next corner. Feels amazing to nail a new trick or improve consistency with old tricks. Then afterwards I get LSD flashbacks looking at the popcorn ceiling while catching my breath. Fun all around.
I have a little limitation on my leg because of a work accident, so every time I exercise it makes me feel “normal”, like a boost of confidence despite the limitation, I even feel happier when I’m tired, like I needed to expel that extra energy out of me.
I rock climb and do conditioning for it. Sometimes I trail run and there is a weird mid action addrenaline i get from it. Same when I am on a high wall. I know I am not gonna fall, but it’s up to me to commit and finish this challenge.
I don’t have fun at all - when I work out just to “work out,” anyway. Then I have to think about it sort of like physical medicine. I do it cause it’s good for me.
But if I can find a way to get the heart pumping that’s primarily about doing an activity, with fitness just being secondary, I have a lot more fun. I recently got into boxing for fitness because kneee trouble was making high-impact cardio painful. Love it. Training becomes something to look forward to because boxing is fun rather than metaphorical castor oil that I swallow down because I need to.
No and I never liked it. I tried going to the gym for a while to lose weight but I felt horrible afterwards and during the excersice and the actual Impact on my obesity was quite minimal (probably my fault as I‘m sure I didn’t do everything right). So i stoped going eventually. I know started walking more, I don’t take the bus from the train station home anymore and rather walk the 3.5km with some nice podcast oj my ears. I like doing it, even atvthe current temperatures as I feel like a get 45 minutes just for me where I don’t have to listen to anyone or anything other than my podcasts I enjoy. I work ij Retail so there’s a constant barrage of people and at the end of the day you just don’t want to see people for a while. So while it does help my weight loss it also just feels kinda therapeutic in a way. I just crossed 120kg (down from 136) this morning and plan to try to extend my walks to my days of as well :-)
This, except for the part about cars. :) I get to see all over my town and the area at large first hand, breathe fresh air and get a workout. Cycling rules!
I love riding my bike. Any kind of bike. Road, mountain, cruiser. Going hard, going easy, uphill, downhill, it’s all fun as fuck.
I like running when I’m not super fat like I am right now. There’s something great about running a faster pace for the last half of a race and feeling stronger at the end than the beginning. When I’m fat here’s nothing worse than running a quarter mile and having everything hurt and being exhausted.
Lifting weights is ok, but nothing I look forward to.
I think there’s some people who do but the vast majority of people don’t. I mean, if we look statistically, people do very little intentional exercise unless they have to and despite repeated instructions to do more exercise from the government, media, doctors, the amount of people doing exercise hasn’t really changed. In fact, it’s gotten worse. Compare that to other hobbies or just watching TV or playing video games.
Also regarding exercise highs, clearly some people do get it but there is an extremely strange insistence that everyone can get it if they try and there’s not a lot of evidence for this. The majority of studies done on exercise highs are with already fit people who exercised regularly on their own. (And even then some studies had a hard time getting the effect to show up) Comparatively fewer studies are done on unfit, overweight and or obese people to see if they’re getting exercise highs at all.
Personally I think that trying to get people to enjoy exercise is setting them up for disappointment. Most people don’t like it, that’s why they don’t do it. I find most of my workouts neutral. A bit like doing a boring assignment at work. I think that’s the best way for people to look at it. Imo the key is not to hate it. If you hate what you’re doing, definitely change to something else. But if you’re consistent and just feel meh about it, I don’t think there’s any reason to chase some mythical awesome exercise that’ll totally make you love working out especially if you already have non physical hobbies you like.
I enjoy the simplicity of weightlifting. Make sure your form is good, count reps, count sets, take note of the weight lifted. All of that keeps my mind occupied for 2h, no room for it to wander into topics I’d rather not think about atm.
I also find some measure of joy out of knowing I’m lifting more today than I was last week, it’s simple and measurable progress. No room for subjective bias, unlike other things I’m trying to improve upon.
It also has the added benefit of tiring me out. GAD and ADHD make for horrible bedfellows, they’ve made nights sleepless for me more often than not, so I’ll take any help I can get.
Edit: otoh, I hate cardio with a passion. Its boring and does nothing but make me sweat and lets my mind wander. I’ve tried everything, from music, to audiobooks, to podcasts. Plus, I feel like I run loudly, like my feet are made of lead, and I don’t like being loud.
Used to swim when I was a kid, was pretty good too apparently. Coach wanted to put me in a pre-15 y/o (10-15 y/o) competition when I was 6 or 7. Got cold feet and dipped out. I dunno if I could take it as an alternative though, I’ve done it now and again but it feels like running. I prefer HIT and even that I don’t love.
I love swimming because of the rhythm, the breathing, the form and it feels like flying. It’s also very quiet. Like the noise of the world goes away first. And eventually, when I find my rhythm, my brain stops it’s busyness. People tell me this about running, but running just hurts my knees a bit.
I’m at a point where sometimes I don’t want to go lift, but it’s part of my routine that if I don’t go I feel like shit. a chore to go, change and warm up but 20min in I just fall in the zone
Depends on the exercise. My favorites are heavy squat and deadlifts. It’s just a good feeling increasing the weight every week and hitting new maxes while getting stronger.
I suck at bench so I’m never looking forward to that, but I’ve set goals to hit by the end of the year so I’m sticking to it.
Honestly now, I feel terrible when I don’t workout and it really affects my mental state.
I enjoy reformers pilates a lot, but that’s because of the deep stretching worked into the routine. It’s a game changer. If I could, I’d be doing it every day.
I fucking hate cardio with the passion of 190 million burning suns. However, I have experienced a runners high before. You get a bit lightheaded and dizzy, but not so much that you pass out. It just feels good. However, not good enough to get me up off my ass and do it, lol.
I love it. I was a fat kid, lost a ton of weight at 30. Got really into biking which gave me strong legs but made me look like an alien. So I started lifting weights to balance that out (and improve my biking). I also started running without any break-in period because my bike fitness carried over to running well enough.
Now I love all three sports for their own sake. I have gone through phases focusing on each one and have developed training methodologies for each. I especially love biking in the summer, lifting in fall and spring, and running in the snow.
The key as I understand it is to set goals and start small, work your way into it. Also go slower on cardio; learn what zone 2 is and spend 80% of your time there. It is better to be slow and enjoy it than go too fast, burn out, and suffer.
Lifting weights feels like a routine. As someone else said, there is purity on watching your body work, looking at your form, and pushing for PRs. I highly recommend Wendel’s 5-3-1 program.
Biking is very freeing, you can go anywhere with enough time. Very calming, in your head time.
Running is shorter and more intense, even at an easy pace I don’t usually want to go more than an hour. But it also feels good for the rest of the day, and there is something charming about getting all sweaty from doing awesome things.
I tried to get back into using a bike last year but man… what ever leg muscles did the most work with biking were just so terribly gone I could only make it one lap around a small park in my neighborhood. Didn’t help that the bike seat dug in between the legs
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