Effects of baseline responses, in-task feelings, and duration of activity on exercise-induced feeling states in women.

Abstract

This study investigated the hypothesis that the effects of acute aerobic exercise on feeling states may be influenced by the objective dose of activity, subjective responses during exercise, and preexisting levels of feeling states. College-age women (N = 80) completed baseline measures and were then randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: attention control for 10 min, or exercise for 10 min, 25 min, or 40 min. Levels of exertion and affect were assessed during exercise, and posttesting occurred 20 min following activity. Exercise enhanced revitalization in comparison with the control condition; however, this effect occurred only for participants scoring low to moderate on the pretest. In addition, in-task feeling states predicted postexercise revitalization even after we controlled for the treatment, the pretest, and the Pretest x Treatment interaction.