Original articles  SPORT PSYCHOLOGY 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2002 June;42(2):217-23

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Pre-exercise anxiety and the anxiolytic responses to acute bouts of self-selected and prescribed intensity resistance exercise

Focht B. C.

From the Department of Health and Exercise Science Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC, USA

Background. The ­present inves­ti­ga­tion exam­ined the ­state anx­ie­ty respons­es to ­acute ­bouts of ­self select­ed and pre­scribed inten­sity resis­tance exer­cise (RE). College age wom­en (n=19) cur­rent­ly ­enrolled in a begin­ning ­weight train­ing ­class ­were recruit­ed to par­tic­i­pate.
Methods. Participants com­plet­ed 3 ran­dom­ly ­assigned, coun­ter­bal­anced con­di­tions of self­-se­lect­ed inten­sity RE, pre­scribed inten­sity RE (75% of 1RM), and ­quiet ­rest con­trol. Assessments of ­state anx­ie­ty (SA) ­were ­obtained ­prior to as ­well as 5, 20, 60, and 120 min fol­low­ing ­each con­di­tion. Ratings of per­ceived exer­tion (RPE) ­were ­assessed with­in ­both RE con­di­tions.
Results. RPE was ­found to be high­er dur­ing pre­scribed inten­sity RE. To exam­ine the ­role of pre-exer­cise anx­ie­ty lev­el on SA respons­es, base­line val­ues in ­each con­di­tion ­were strat­i­fied ­into ­high and low ­groups. Analyses ­revealed ­that, irre­spec­tive of inten­sity, SA was sig­nif­i­cant­ly ­reduced fol­low­ing ­both ­self-select­ed and pre­scribed RE con­di­tions with­in the ­high base­line SA ­group. Conversely, reduc­tions in SA ­only ­emerged 60 and 120 min fol­low­ing the self­se­lect­ed RE con­di­tion in the low base­line SA ­group.
Conclusions. It is con­clud­ed ­that the SA respons­es to ­acute RE are influ­enced by base­line anx­ie­ty lev­el and the rel­a­tive inten­sity of the ­bout. Results sug­gest ­that reduc­tions in SA are ­observed fol­low­ing ­acute RE inde­pen­dent of the inten­sity of exer­cise in the pres­ence of ­high base­line SA val­ues where­as reduc­tions are ­only exhib­it­ed fol­low­ing ­less ­intense ­bouts of RE ­when low base­line SA lev­els are evi­dent.