Categorie: FIT

Being a runner seems to be the ultimate idea of being fit, happy and healthy.  The feeling while running is often described with words like ‘stress-reliever’, ‘natural drug’, ‘away from daily hassles’, ‘back to nature’, ‘victorious and invincible’ and creating ‘self-confidence’. Runners like to advise non-(fan of)-runners with encouraging ideas like ‘all beginning is hard, you have to push through to get to love it’ and ‘humans are made for endurance running, you should just get fit and be determined’.

Dear no-love-feelers-for-running, you’re not alone! And science is actually on our side as well. Really, you don’t need running to live a happy and healthy life. If you do your cardio hours in spinning classes, by jumping rope and dance classes – trust me, you will be at least as happy and satisfied as the invincible runners.

So why don’t I like running? I can run pretty well. I am a pretty fast sprinter. I can do 5K under half an hour and some years ago I even tried to go for 10K in less than an hour and if I push myself a little, I can do it – my body is in shape. However I never feel great when I start.  I definitely don’t experience the ‘runner’s high’. My intestines have been bouncing around for the past half an hour, I can feel the weight hit on my knees and ankles with every step and my throat hurts from not being able to drink enough while keeping my pace. I feel pretty drained since it’s quite an intense mental exercise to keep running while your body tells you: screw this bouncing and let’s go home.

Now I read that humans are build to hunt and, therefore run long distance and are  programmed to save energy by minimizing physical activity when not hunting. This means that when you’re running on a treadmill not going anywhere but you are running your butt off – your mind will tell you to stop this waste of energy immediately. I am not sure we can go so far back that we can actually use this theory as an excuse. I never felt this ‘stop now’-feeling with any other physical activity. And follow the hunting logic, any ‘useless’ intense physical activity is to be avoided.

There is research that shows that a fifth of the people actually don’t respond to running as the others do.

Scientists from England’s Loughborough University found that a person’s genes can predict how well their body will respond to the stamina training needed for a marathon and consequently how they’ll perform in an endurance race. “From our work, we know that 20 percent of people do not respond at all to training and in fact can get worse,” Jamie Timmons, who was head of systems biology at Loughborough University when the study was conducted in 2013, told The Telegraph. “They push themselves as hard as everyone else, but their muscles do not extract the same amount of oxygen.”

Timmons found that for these people, logging the marathon miles could actually result in a decrease in performance which is likely to make it hard to enjoy long runs and to ever love running.

So maybe I am belonging to the 20 percent of people who doesn’t seem to be designed for running or I am just not self-motivated enough to break through the barrier into the bright shiny side of running. Whatever it is, I don’t need to run to be fit. And I know for a fact that when I am enjoying myself when I am exercising, that I will actually stick to my routine, be happy and feel proud of myself for keeping my body healthy.

What can you do instead of running?

-Join a cardio class (spinning, Zumba, Cross Training, Steps, etc)

-Cycle, row, jump rope, use other machines that you are comfortable with and make sure to switch so you don’t get bored.

-Do an online cardio workout from the comfort of your own home.

For example a good week of cardio can look like this:

Monday: 45min insanity training

Tuesday: 30min fast walking

Wednesday: 45min crossfit

Thursday: 60min zumba

Friday: 45min insanity training

Saturday: 60min swimming

Sunday: going for a hike

If you want to keep your body fit, but don’t have time for daily cardio and muscle training, try 3-4 cardio trainings a week of which 2 are very intense  and an additional 1 or 2 lower intensity trainings like walking or swimming.

You need to make sure to get your heart beat up and to keep going for a while to really make it count. Let’s get sweaty!