How training keeps you
happy!
By Master Trainer Kamal
from Legends Gym
Team Bodybuilding
Mauritius contributing Writer
For some of us, getting an
exercise ‘high’ is par for the course when we work up a sweat, while for others
it’s a mythical occurrence that remains frustratingly out of reach. So, can
exercise really make you feel significantly better mentally, or is it just a
fitness myth? Lets have a look at the link between exercise and the production
of endorphins.
Endorphins, the body’s own
opiate-like chemicals, have long been held responsible for the so-called
exercise ‘high’, and experts once thought that we needed to tough it out at a
certain intensity, for a given length of time, in order to ‘flick the switch’
and get an endorphin boost. For example, a report in the journal Physician and
Sports Medicine concluded that to get an exercise ‘high’, you have to work at
76% of your maximum heart rate, and may need to keep going for two hours or more.
But with some exercise fanatics blissing out by doing much less work, and
others putting in even greater amounts of effort to no avail, researchers began
to realise that the formula wasn’t so simple.
