Running, Rehab, and Reframing Mindset

Hey everyone, Dr. Fred Bagares here! In this episode, I take you through my love-hate relationship with running.  I share how I reframed my mindset around running to make it work for me.

We’ll talk about why I never got that “runner’s high,” how jiu-jitsu became my primary form of cardio, and why I’m now incorporating running back into my training in a way that actually makes sense for me. More importantly, we’ll dive into the mental barriers that stop us from exercising—and how breaking tasks down into manageable pieces can make all the difference.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps:
🏃 [00:35] – Why I’ve always hated running (but did it anyway)
⚖️ [01:12] – Losing 50 pounds and how running helped me achieve my goal
🧠 [02:25] – Why I never experienced the “runner’s high” everyone talks about
🥋 [03:39] – How jiu-jitsu became my preferred form of cardio
🚑 [05:08] – The reality of aging: injuries, recovery, and training smarter
🔄 [06:31] – Revisiting running: Why I started again despite hating it
🛠️ [08:07] – Reframing exercise: Can you work for just 4 minutes?
🧩 [09:38] – How small mindset shifts can help overcome big fitness barriers
💡 [12:00] – Final thoughts: Why changing your approach can help you reach your goals

Even though I don’t love running, I’ve learned to do it in a way that benefits me—not just physically, but mentally as well. If you’ve ever struggled with motivation or found yourself avoiding workouts you know are good for you, this episode is for you!

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow me on:
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Thanks for tuning in, and as always—keep moving! 💪🚶‍♂️

Transcript

0:00

what is rehab or rehabilitation my name is fred bagaris a board certified sports and medicine physician in virginia beach virginia after 10 years of practice i still find musculoskeletal medicine both fascinating and challenging this podcast is about the lingering thoughts and questions i've had after residency and fellowship my hope is to spark discussion challenge dogma and share my experiences in musculoskeletal medicine welcome to the talking rehab podcast i was never a huge fan of running even as a kid watching my kids currently play sports you know i see some of these kids that can run for days they just really really enjoy running around the field and i played sports growing up but that was just never me i i absolutely hated running for the sake of running now i would hustle and play play my position but outside of like conditioning i absolutely just hated running however i was pretty overweight growing up as a child so between my eighth and ninth grade year i decided to make a very conscious decision to lose weight and get back in shape so i actually lost about 50 pounds over summer so much to the point that when i came back in ninth grade no one actually recognized me which was which was an awesome feeling but i utilized running and working out lifting weights things like that but running was my main form of cardio and it was super effective i i definitely got the results so my my relationship with running was always surrounding weight loss and just generally getting a good getting your heart rate up getting your heart pumping getting drenched in sweat i liked the results of running but the actual process i just never really liked it just in general i guess i should probably talk about the reasons why i didn't like running was you know i found it kind of boring i would run i run in different environments treadmill outside on the beach and you know i think the beach was a little bit more scenic but you know at the end of the day i just didn't really find it really you know i was kind of bored i just didn't really like it however one of the main things that i never really achieved was that quote unquote runner's high you know a lot of the my friends would tell me that you know just keep running eventually you'll just kind of reach this runner's high it'll be euphoric and you'll just really enjoy it and i just never really got there and at one point i was running every day and i just never really got there at some point i stopped running you know just based off of that experience was that well you know i had achieved my weight loss goal i didn't really like it but it was really effective and i never got the runner's high i had no real desire to you know run a marathon or do any competitive running so that that again was not really a motivation and i just stopped now that i'm older i did give it a try again because running in the past has been one of the ways i've been able to maintain and lose weight and as we all know and love it's harder to stay healthy and keep weight down the older that we get but when i tried running again not only did i not like it but it actually bothered my knees a lot more which is kind of like a double negative again but i restarted running again recently and i wanted to kind of share what changed my mind about the whole experience in my mid-30s i started doing jujitsu which is a martial art that i absolutely love i've always enjoyed martial arts but jujitsu has really become a big part of who i am i just identify with so many so many things about it and maybe that'll be a different episode but um you know jujitsu for what it is it from a cardiovascular standpoint is really great for weight loss aside from it being fun it is essentially a form of a high intensity interval training so when i first started out um 10 years ago i was i was training and rolling um five you know essentially five to six days a week and for the folks that uh are not familiar with jujitsu you know rolling is essentially like sparring and i would equate it to similar but different to wrestling but it is kind of that that pace and that um that type of movement and energy and it is a lot of fun it is a great way to to to burn calories for sure however again now that i'm older aside from just the you know the other responsibilities that i have rolling five to six days a week is is great if you can do it but my body just simply can't really tolerate it anymore particularly around 40 years old i really noticed that my body started to change and respond differently to certain forms of exercise so in addition to that i've also been concerned about actually getting injured the older that i've been getting it's easier to get injured i'm no longer the younger person in the room anymore i don't recover as fast i'm not as explosive as i used to be but i i am training with some of these like 20 year old monsters so you know i do have to be concerned about getting injured from a professional standpoint you know as a physician working with my hands but obviously with my responsibilities as a husband and a dad so cardio from about 20 to 30 years old was mainly running for me um but then from 35 and up until recently it's been mainly jujitsu but again for these reasons i was like i started wondering is there is this a smart way for me to train um certainly time on the mat does give me more you know more mat experience but it also increases the potential risk of injury and if jujitsu is my my main form of cardio and i get injured doing jujitsu then i won't be able to participate in the sport that i love and i won't get the cardio and so i started looking again at different ways to get my workouts in so i picked up rowing i have a water rower at the house which is a different exercise it does get your heart rate up i also have an air bike which is great for a great pump but i recently started running again and even though i even though i don't like the running i started to do it again because it does have a lot of benefits i'm a huge proponent of moving in all directions and stressing your body in different ways versus if i was strictly doing jujitsu or strictly running you know it's that's a great way to maintain your activity but your joints and your body were really designed to do a lot of different things like life too much of a good thing can be a bad thing so i am a big believer in having different forms of exercise different forms of movement your body tends to respond better to that long term so i started running again recently essentially to prepare myself for doing uh doing these rounds of rolling the typical roll at my school is about five to six minutes long and it's divided by one minute of rest and so depending on the day the rounds there can be anywhere between three rounds to maybe like six or seven rounds so that's a pretty good workout and i started to structure my workouts based on the rounds so if i know that my i have to be able to do a round of five to six minutes i started designing my running workouts around five minutes so i'm currently doing about four minutes of running and one minute of rest i do that i'm trying to do that maybe every other day because that at least from a mental standpoint the idea of rounds feels a little bit my brain seems to like that a little bit better versus telling myself i have to run 25 minutes because when it comes to jiu-jitsu i can do three to five three to five rounds and be okay with it but if you told me i had to run 25 minutes i'd probably hate every minute of it so again maybe it's just like a little bit of a mental trick there but i'm starting to slowly increase it to five to six minutes of work and that gets into the other aspect of why i'm doing the running i know that i don't like to run i've never really liked it however what i've been starting to do tell myself is or ask myself is can you do work for four to five minutes so the way that i structure my workout is i have a tabata timer and i have four minutes of work with one minute of rest and i and i create essentially five rounds and so i run for four minutes take a break for one minute and the the timer just kind of goes over and over and over for five minutes and then i'm done so what i'm really trying to do is build my mind around the simple question of can you work for four minutes i think this is a big barrier not just in the jiu-jitsu realm but in terms of exercise rehabilitation is can you do this activity for a certain amount of time i remember in my earlier days of jiu-jitsu you know sometimes you get stuck on in a tough position and you want to quit and when i was in those tough positions i would ask myself can you last 10 more seconds can you work for 10 more seconds and i always could eventually the the round would end and and i would be fine but you know there's always these little moments where i was always looking for a mental way out how can i get out of this i knew i could last 10 seconds but the thought of lasting the entire round was almost too much in the moment and so from a rehabilitation standpoint i think of it the same way for some people the thought of running for 25 minutes is unappealing but can you work out for four minutes absolutely if you do that multiple times you eventually get to that 25 minutes and while some people might say well that's not the same thing you're running and walking running and walking but at the end of the day i'm still doing work in 25 minutes versus not and for a lot of people that mental barrier just prevents them from ever really getting started plus i think we all need to care a lot less about what other people think about our overall progress how i improve is how i improve it may look different from everyone else but we need to focus more on what we're trying to accomplish versus what other people think so from my standpoint running is not an activity i like to do but i have somehow refrained it in my mind where it's something that i am able to do i still don't necessarily like it but my benefits and motivations are different now the motivation is finding a different way to to get my cardio in structuring it in a way where it potentially could translate into a different sport that i actually like to do which is jujitsu but more importantly it's also challenging me mentally you know it's it's giving me a different way to tackle some of these mental barriers that we all have you know everything can seem impossible or we we can always talk ourselves out of you know big goals or even small goals but if we can all find a way to change our relationship to it and oftentimes that is mindset we might actually start these goals long story short is even though i don't like running i do it because i see the benefit of it not just from a physical standpoint but also a mental standpoint but it only really came about when i started to change how i approach a running type workout hopefully this helps you guys think about your day-to-day movement and if you have any particular physical goals that you're afraid of trying or or you have a mental barrier around starting maybe if you start to change the mindset by approaching it in a different way with small attainable goals getting started is much better than not starting at all thanks again for listening thank you for listening to the talking rehab podcast i hope that this podcast stimulates you to question your own practice and how you approach rehabilitation i truly appreciate your time and attention if you enjoyed listening make sure to like and subscribe to the podcast i wish you a movement feel day take care