Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Balgair | Hacker News Reader

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> Bonus attributes are it's addictive. Once you do it long enough, your brain will begin to encourage and reward this healthy behavior. Sometimes, it will even punish you for trying to skip exercise with negative emotions and nature's great motivator: shame.

Maybe I am non-normal here, but I've no idea what that feels like. Mind, I've run a marathon before, participated in a few organized athletic sports leauges, been on sports teams, improved my weight lifting substantially, and just gone for mile runs and bit of basketball.

I've never felt like I needed to go out and exercise. Sitting on the couch has always been just fine.

It has always been an internal battle to go out and exercise. I feel like crap after exercising. I'm tired, sweaty, grouchy, my legs are wobbly after any distance run, and it takes about 3 hours for me to wind down. I do sleep better, but I can't exercise after ~6pm if I want to get to sleep by ~10pm. My concentration is shot during the winding down and I can't work or study either. Truely, honestly, I do not like exercising. Like, I know it's good for me, but, man alive, it just sucks to do!

Look, I know I am weird here, but based off the data on rates of exercise, I'm not super certain that I'm too far off the average.

I think what some of this discussion is missing is there are two continuous scales of wanting exercise. There is the axis the GP speaks of of wanting to exercise (for me, because of the endorphin rush) but also an orthogonal axis of laziness/busyness/inertia/etc that fights the first desire. I’ve found it common to both intensely want and simultaneously not want to exercise — and eventually one axis out-weighs the other.

It is similar to the HR principal (forgot the name) where employees can both intensely like the job but also dislike it — all because the continuoum is on a single axis one.

>for me, because of the endorphin rush

I think my lack of exercise-wanting is related to this! I don't get that rush feeling. Sorry to not have mentioned that. I just feel terrible the whole time. My SO mentioned this too. For my SO, there is this 'glow' feeling after a workout. I don't believe that I get any such benefit.

There's a tipping point with frequency. After doing hard exercise on an almost daily basis for months you start to feel like crap when you miss a couple days.

Possibly for you. But for me, nah, not really. No matter the regularity of the exercise, it does not really get better. Sure, weights I thought were heavy are easier to pick up, I can run further, etc. But I still feel like crap afterwards.

Thanks so much for posting this - I thought I was the only one.

I'm really happy for your reply - I wanna ask you some questions, and compare to myself.

1) When did you start exercising(what age)?

2) What shape were you in when you started?

I'm speculating those could affect whether or not you get the endorphin high. Personally, I started when I was 18(I enlisted), and I was very out of shape when I began. By out of shape, I mean I started exercising before I enlisted, and was unable to maintain a run around a city block.

1- 4th grade or so

2- Typical 4th grader

Tried mountain biking? I enjoy getting out and combining the exercise with technical ability and social time. I can practice technique or watch my heart rate and cadence, or just enjoy the scenery. Travel to very nice places and ride way off the beaten track. It's interesting and not just a slog.

Maybe I can help address the feeling after exercise. Are you pushing too hard? I've read that the thumb rule is 80% of your exercise must be at conversational effort, meaning if you are running, for 80% of it, you should be able to hold a conversation.

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