A Comparison of Affective Responses During Continuous and Interval Exercise

Plain-language summary

Regular exercise is important for good health, but many people do not achieve the minimum physical activity recommendations. How exercise makes people feel is an important factor in how much exercise people do. Affective valence (AV) is a measure of the pleasure and/or displeasure people feel. It has been suggested that if the drop in AV with exercise can be minimised, then people will be more likely to enjoy the exercise, and adhere to the exercise long-term. Much research has been done to elucidate the factors that affect changes in AV with exercise, with a focus on exercise intensity. It has been hypothesised that AV will increase with low to moderate exercise intensities, but will decrease with higher exercise intensities. This has led a number of researchers to claim that there is little value in research examining the health benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and/or sprint interval training (SIT), as the exercise intensities used in these exercise routines are so high that affective valence is expected to drop to levels that are suggested to be unpalatable to members of the general public. However, this hypothesis ignores the likely moderating effect of exercise duration: most available evidence indicates that affect drops over time with increasing exercise duration. This means that it is possible for a longer exercise bout at a lower intensity to be associated with a greater drop in AV compared to a shorter bout of exercise at a higher intensity. This may explain why recent studies have demonstrated that low-volume SIT protocols may be associated with a similar drop in AV compared to moderate-intensity continuous exercise, but are considered more enjoyable. It is hypothesised that exercise enjoyment (and subsequent uptake and adherence to an exercise routine) is linked to the amount of time spent at reduced AV, rather than the absolute drop in AV per se. To investigate this hypothesis, changes in affective valence will be measured in response to three bouts of moderate intensity continuous exercise at different intensities but equal duration (30 minutes) as well as two bouts of SIT involving different numbers of sprint repetitions and sprint duration but equal intensity. It will be determined whether exercise enjoyment is related to the time spent at reduced levels of AV. The overall aim of this study is to further elucidate the exercise protocol parameters that influence changes in AV with exercise.

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