Fit but Foul

If you're shooting for a runner's high, you're not likely to find
it on a treadmill.

The psychic benefits of running are all in the setting, says Georg
Eifert, Ph.D., a University of West Virginia psychologist.

Eifert recorded hormonal and mood changes in 10 avid runners after
they jogged in three different terrains: the first around a college
campus, then twice inside on a treadmill. During the first indoor run,
the athletes listened to a tape recording of the sounds in a botanical
garden. The second was to the tune of their own heartbeat, recorded and
amplified as they ran.

Heart rates were accelerated after every run, but cardiovascular
benefits are not all there is to exercising. Eifert found that after the
outdoor run, the athletes felt more invigorated, refreshed, and happy
than before they started. And their bodies showed it: Levels of
adrenaline and noradrenaline, hormones associated with positive mood,
were up. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol were down.

Running indoors to the beat of their own hearts, runners felt more
fatigued and depressed after than before. Their physiology matched their
foul mood: Adrenaline levels dropped, cortisol climbed. The run with the
botanical recording begat no mood changes, and negligible hormonal
changes.

Even though your heart doesn't care where you run, your head does.
If your mood sours after a treadmill run, you aren't likely to continue
to exercise at all.

So pack the treadmill into the hall closet--where all good exercise
equipment goes to die--and take to the streets.