ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 1998 September;38(3):272-8

Copyright © 1999 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Affective responses of physically active and sedentary individuals during and after moderate aerobic exercise

Reed J. ¹, Berg K. E. ², Latin R. W. ², La Voie J. P. ³

¹ School of Kinesiology and Leisure Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; ² School of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE; ³ Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE

Background. This ­study exam­ined the ­effects of aero­bic fit­ness and exer­cise his­to­ry on ­self-report­ed ­affect dur­ing and ­after ­acute aero­bic exer­cise and ­quiet read­ing.
Methods. Active and sed­en­tary par­tic­i­pants (N=41) report­ed ­their psy­cho­log­i­cal ­affect dur­ing two sep­ar­ate con­di­tions in a coun­ter­bal­anced ­design: (1) exer­cise on a ­cycle ergom­e­ter at 50% pre­dict­ed V.O2max, and (2) ­quiet read­ing in a reclin­ing ­chair. Affect was ­assessed ­prior to, eve­ry 3 min­utes dur­ing, and at 5 and 20 min­utes ­after ­each 24-min­ute exer­cise and read­ing peri­od.
Results. Analysis ­revealed ­that ­active par­tic­i­pants ­were sig­nif­i­cant­ly ­more pos­i­tive ­than the sed­en­tary ­group dur­ing exer­cise and at 5 min­utes post­ex­er­cise. The ­groups ­were sim­i­lar in ­affect at 20 min­utes post­ex­er­cise. No ­between-­group dif­fer­enc­es ­were ­found dur­ing the read­ing con­di­tion. Exercise ­enhanced ­affect com­pared to read­ing ­only for the ­active ­group. In addi­tion, the affec­tive respons­es of ­both ­groups ­were influ­enced by pre-­ex­er­cise ­affect, ­with the great­est increas­es ­observed for ­those report­ing the low­est ­affect ­before activ­ity.
Conclusions. These ­results sug­gest ­that affec­tive respons­es dur­ing and ­after aero­bic exer­cise ­were influ­enced by exer­cise his­to­ry and aero­bic fit­ness, but mod­er­at­ed by pre­-ac­tiv­ity ­scores.