I don't get why cardiovascular training, like running, wouldn't lead to the same feeling of accomplishment. You might not get stronger (in the same obvious way), but you will most certainly be faster.
Could have something to do with the hormones and neurotransmitters that the body gets flooded with after lifting, could just be light-headed, could be something to do with all the tiny muscle tears...not entirely sure.
On the flip side, I'm a bigger guy(6'5"), and I just feel beat down and ache for days if I do any substantial distance running.
Sprinting though, seems to have similar physiological symptoms as lifting, and I believe several studies have shown that intensity rather than duration of exercise produces these effects.
I get the same from full out, pumping-every-last-muscle-fiber sprinting too. It's something about the all-encompassing physicality of it - the brain almost goes into an instinct mode and all you can focus on is going as fast as possible, there's no room for anything else. Talk about a perfect way to get your mind off something!
I think though, for me, the best thing to do is a reasonable distance run (5k +) with a full-out sprint finish. During the distance part you get to really chew over whatever it is that you have to think about or that's stressing you out - then the sprint finish gives you a kind of catharsis at the end where, as above, you forget all about everything else for a minute or so and just, push!
Afterwards you feel so great that everyday stresses just fall away. Very few things feel nicer than being able to just stop, breathe, and walk slowly after a 5k with a sprint finish!
Of course, it's different if you're constantly doing 1RMs, but I doubt your workout consists solely of that.
Off the top of my head I can't think of any other major exercises that require a spotter. Squats maybe? But for those you can just use a smith machine.
I used to only go to the gym when I had a friend to go with (this was back in college so it wasn't a huge pain). Starting to go by myself was the best change I ever made. Not being beholden to another's schedule for your own wellbeing is a glorious thing indeed.
With a smith machine, you don't get the full range of motion you have with real barbell squats - it's straight-line up and down. I also am not a fan of the twisting motion you need to perform to get the bar locked in.
Have also done a good amount of biking but haven't lived in an area that's safe for it in a while.
Or when you snowboard instead of a slalom you go just straight reaching 50-60 km/h with the board... Or after a big jump... (or when you understand that there's no place to go and you're gonna crash no matter what :-P ).
There are really, very few things that can be compared with a pure adrenaline rush.
I have the impression that there's' a trade-off between effectiveness and safety though, and this advice is pretty far towards the safe side of the spectrum.
And yes, I do have horrible technique. And since I don't have a personal trainer, no one is ever going to tell me when my technique slips, so I'd rather not rely on it.
The others where loading up machines with weights I could not have moved if it weren't for the fixed movement plane of the machine, that ultimately meant trouble for my lower back (leg press) and grinding in my knees (leg extensions).
I'd recommend doing the big 3, but starting off light. Focus on improving the movement. Record yourself, fix your form, develop awareness of your body position (for example - what does "butt tucked in" feel like?) and learn how to dump the bar if something goes wrong.
Above all: don't let your ego get in the way. There's a fine line between "just one more" and "one too many".
Barbell training is quite safe if you learn proper technique.
Also, if strength is a goal, it's very difficult to work with heavier weights without a bar.
Endorphins are often given as a reason for why exercise makes people feel better. But when you give people an endorphin blocker (so the endorphins can't have any effect) you still get reports that exercise helped those people.
There are about 12 possible plausible mechanisms of action for why exercise may help improve mood. Thermo-regulation is another that seems promising.
I'm a runner and have found absolutely fantastic feelings of accomplishment and pride, as well as an undeniably healthier and happier lifestyle.
I suspect, as Swizec implied below, it mostly perception. Many runners tend to be less quantitative about performance gains, and therefore have less obvious metrics for advancement.
Does lead to an interesting corollary: does 'gamification' and quantification of athletic advancement improve retention of the habit?
Half-marathon fun facts snapshot:
Since 2000, the number of half-marathon finishers in this country has quadrupled (482,000 to 1,960,000) or an impressive increase of 307%. For the first time in history, 61% of U.S. half-marathon finishers were females (approximately 1,196,000, a record), the highest proportion of any race distance. Although their percent fell to 39%, there was also a record 764,000 male finishers last year. Also, in 2013, there were 34 U.S. half-marathons with 10,000 or more finishers (second highest total ever). This data point has doubled since 2009 when there were 17 with 10,000-plus finishers, and in 2000, there was only one. For the year, there were a total of 42 half-marathons that make up the Top 100 U.S. timed road race list with 15 of them from the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series. The Nike Women's event in Washington, DC last April was the largest inaugural annual half-marathon ever with 14,478 finishers. Since 2010, 13.1 miles has been the second most popular distance by finishers behind the 5K. According to Running USA's 2013 National Runner Survey, the half-marathon distance is the favorite race distance by core runners nationwide (preferred 38% by men and 43% by women). Last year, there were more than 2,100 active U.S. half-marathons (final road race numbers to be released in an upcoming State of the Sport Report). Per our count, October hosted the most U.S. half-marathons (288), while January had the least (83) in 2013. October 2013 also produced the most 13.1 mile finishers with more than 312,000 and July the least finishers with just under 53,000. http://www.runningusa.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.details&...
http://www.runningusa.org/statistics http://www.runningusa.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.details&...
> There are an enormous number of folks that compete in
> races and are timed
With lifting weights, you lift a specified fixed numerical quantity that generally you need to record so you lift the same or more the week after.
I'm a sprinter, so I do take a quantitative approach to running.
I also lift weights, and I would say that I do so seriously. But my weights are my own body and big rice sacks filled with water bottles that I heave around in various ways until I'm tired. I'm an experienced enough athlete to know when I'm hitting my limits, without following any specific metric.
I'm afraid I don't share your perspective, runners can easily get performance feedback without going overboard with fancy and shiny gadgets.
I'm a regular runner and I live in a coastal city and I frequently take my runs by the seaside. I start at a fixed point and set my finish point within the confines of a certain district/neighborhood and when I can complete the race as I had predicted, I consider this to be success and progress. Sometimes, I set instead a time limit to cover a certain distance and see if I could make it within that limit.
So, no runners can certainly measure their progress and performance improvements/shortcomings in very simple metrics if they so desire.
Schwarzenegger at one point famously (in "Pumping Iron") described it as better than having an orgasm, and it's hard not to agree.
I haven't done much running, but when I have, I've never felt anything similar - breaking personal records when running would leave me wanting to collapse in a heap on the ground. Breaking personal records when lifting tends to make me walk around like I'd just broken a world record and everyone was watching.
The variety of human experience is massive, some people are tetrachromats, some can't visualise at all, some can't experience romantic love.
Completely unrelated, but this struck me.. is this an actual thing? I have a lot of difficulty believing it
Running makes you (well, me at least) feel like you have outlasted something. You have endured and overcome.
Both are accomplishments, but feel different. I feel much more like shouting & strutting in triumph in the first case than the second :)
It's very easy to measure progress when you're lifting. You're putting more on, the numbers are going up. Lifting more weight leads to being able to lift more weight. The path from "lift less" to "lift more" is obvious, easy to measure, and feels a bit like building an MMORPG character.
For running the gains are a lot slower and less correlated to your training. Running 2 minutes faster today than three months ago also doesn't feel as significant as squatting 50kg more than three months ago does.
2. I think you're pretty off base. The gains for running are just as correlated to your training, and (IMO, obviously, it's unquantifiable) a 10% speed improvement feels exactly as good as a 10% weight increase.
(For reference, I've been a medium good runner and lifter: at my various peaks I've run consistent sub-18 5ks and squatted 5x315lbs)
One of the reasons why weight lifting makes the process more obvious is that lifting is inherently a high intensity workout.
This is absolutely untrue, and purely personal anecdotes. Otherwise agree with your first two paragraphs.
I did make very very quick gains by "just lifting" and so felt very differently about it. These gains were both in strength and body composition, and within only a few months I found that I could impress people. Not at all like running: it's years and I still can't run an 8-minute mile.
I've lifted and run at various times in my life, and I found running a lot more rewarding, especially with all of the bad advice out there that surrounds lifting.
After the past 5 years of mostly running (with some time away at times due to injuries), I went from a 12 minute mile to a sub-7 minute mile in 3 years (with 1 year not doing much in the way of exercise). Consistency with the frequency of exercise matters a lot.
A 5 minute difference. Which is amazing. But only to other runners.
Going from a 50kg (110lbs) squat to a 130kg squat (286lbs) in 3 years is almost trivially doable (I've once gone from 50kg to 100kg in 3 months) and is impressive to everyone.
As much as we'd like our motivations to be pure, we really really really like impressing our friends.