Do benefits of getting buff make it OK to take a puff?

If the notion of the "social smoker" is a myth, then somewhere, the "healthy smoker" is bumming a light from Sasquatch.

Sure, it's an oxymoron. It might even be moronic. But puff on this: Last year, more than 530,000 people who belong to health clubs also bought smoking cessation medication, according to Scarborough Research. That's nearly the population of Seattle — and those are just the ones who are trying to quit.

"I would say it's more common than people think," said Will Baldyga, a personal trainer for local gym franchise Pure Fitness. "People feel that because they work out, they don't have to quit smoking."

Nearly 20 percent of daily smokers say they exercise three or more times a week, according to 2003 research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Modern gym folklore abounds with rumored sightings of people putting out cigarettes on their way into the gym or lighting up as they leave.

"I actually feel better about having a cigarette because I worked out in the morning," said Dana Price, 42, of Seattle. "I feel I have carte blanche to get a little abusive."

While training for the Seattle marathon last year, Price would occasionally run eight miles in the morning and have cigarettes with cocktails at night. She recalls that as far back as 12 years ago, she would go on runs with a friend, followed by coffee and cigarettes. And after the St. Paddy's Day Dash in March, Price said, "people were walking by smoking cigarettes in their running gear. They'd clearly just finished the race."

Baldyga, the personal trainer, says he has clients who are very athletic but refuse to quit smoking.

"It's like when people say, 'I can eat half a [carton of] Ben & Jerry's because I worked out really hard today,' " he said. "You're taking two steps forward to take a step back."

Perhaps it's unscientific evidence that, for some, the exercising bone is connected to the smoking bone: one habit begets the other. Medical types call this a "paired behavior." Jon Christiansen — who is a smoker, not a doctor — offers his self-diagnosis.

"The first puff, when you get off a bike ride, is just the best," said Christiansen, 34, of Seattle. "Your lungs are all pumped up, and you just go right into your cigarette. [The nicotine] goes straight to where it needs to be."

Presumably, Christiansen is not referring to the nicotine going to his head, though one might justifiably wonder if cigarette smoke is clouding his brain. But is it possible that he could be on to something? Pop culture has long proffered images linking nicotine to physical activity, from tobacco-spitting baseball players to chain-smoking ballerinas. Would applying the principle of the post-coital cigarette to post-workouts be such a stretch?

"You're feeling good; maybe you're feeling more invincible," said Abigail Halperin, director of the tobacco studies program at the University of Washington. "If you pair smoking with any good feeling, it's going to make it more powerful. ... It is a sublime addiction."

Halperin allows for the possibility that breathing harder after physical exertion might deliver that initial hit of nicotine "a split-second faster." But she maintains that the psychological addiction is what drives paired behaviors, such as smoking while drinking coffee or alcohol. Halperin, who quit smoking after her second year of medical school, used to smoke when she studied.

"I did not study again [after med school] for 17 years," she said. "The first night I was up late, writing a paper, I was dying for a cigarette. I started rationalizing with myself: 'Maybe I can just smoke when writing papers... '

"Anyone who smokes has to be in denial about the health effects, and yet it's so easy to talk ourselves into it and think we can beat the odds."

A 2004 study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that physical activity appeared to reduce the risk of lung cancer among 54- to 62-year-old smokers by 16 percent. For participants age 63 and up, however, activity levels did not offset cancer risk or mortality.

Halperin counters that any attempt to justify smoking with an otherwise healthy lifestyle is "kind of a Russian roulette."

"What this study says to me is that smokers who exercise may be delaying their risk of lung cancer, but not necessarily reducing their overall chances of getting it," she said. "People who exercise and eat well have lower risk for heart disease and some kinds of cancer. If you're athletic and you're smoking a pack a day, you're going to add that risk back — and maybe more."

Greg Kohanim, 36, is well aware of the give-and-take of a healthy lifestyle. An avid biker, Kohanim avoids red meat, eats minimal dairy products and rides 30 to 40 miles daily during the summer. He also smokes a pack and a half of Camel Lights a day.

"A lot of people are surprised when they find out," said Kohanim, of Issaquah. "I'm thinking about trying to quit now, just because it doesn't really fit in with my lifestyle. It's been [in] the last five years that it's become a long-term health concern of mine."

At least for now, however, he unapologetically remains a walking — or biking — contradiction.

"I'll be riding along the Burke-Gilman trail at 20 miles an hour, smoking a cigarette," he said. "I get a lot of dirty looks."

Seattle Times researcher Gene Balk contributed to this story. Pamela Sitt: 206-464-2376 or psitt@seattletimes.com