A Comparison of Affective Responses During Continuous and Interval Exercise

NCT06140693 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 14849
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 29
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief 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.

Conditions

Health Behavior

Keywords

Affective valence; Exercise enjoyment

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Affective valence

  Measured using 'the Feeling Scale' (Hardy and Rejeski, 1989) on a scale from 5 (feeling very good) to -5 (feeling very bad).

  Measured pre-exercise and 10 minutes post-exercise (all protocols), every 3 minutes during continuous exercise, and 15 seconds before, halfway, 5 seconds from end of sprint, at end of sprint, and 15 seconds after each sprint for SIT protocols.

• Felt-arousal

  Measured using 'Felt-arousal Scale' (Svebak and Murgatroyd, 1985) on a scale from 1 (low arousal) to 6 (high arousal)

  Measured pre-exercise and 10 minutes post-exercise (all protocols), every 3 minutes during continuous exercise, and 15 seconds before, halfway, 5 seconds from end of sprint, at end of sprint, and 15 seconds after each sprint for SIT protocols.

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Remembered enjoyment

  Measured 10 minutes post-task for all protocols.

Study Arms (1)

Experimental group

EXPERIMENTAL

All participants will perform all 5 exercise protocols (reduced-exertion high-intensity exercise, sprint interval exercise, below ventilatory threshold continuous exercise, at ventilatory threshold continuous exercise, and above ventilatory threshold continuous exercise) to determine the effect of intensity and duration of exercise on affective valence and felt-arousal, which will be measured using the feeling scale and felt-arousal scale respectively. Remembered enjoyment will be recorded using the physical activity enjoyment scale (PACES) 10 min post exercise.

Other: Continuous exercise at an intensity below the ventilatory threshold; Other: Continuous exercise at an intensity at the ventilatory threshold; Other: Continuous exercise at an intensity above the ventilatory threshold; Other: Sprint interval training; Other: Reduced-exertion high-intensity interval training

Interventions

Continuous exercise at an intensity below the ventilatory threshold OTHER

30 minutes of cycling exercise on a stationary bike at an intensity corresponding to 80% of the intensity at the ventilatory threshold

Also known as: Exercise duration

Experimental group

Continuous exercise at an intensity at the ventilatory threshold OTHER

30 minutes of cycling exercise on a stationary bike at an intensity corresponding to 100% of the intensity at the ventilatory threshold

Experimental group

Continuous exercise at an intensity above the ventilatory threshold OTHER

30 minutes of cycling exercise on a stationary bike at an intensity corresponding to 110% of the intensity at the ventilatory threshold

Experimental group

Sprint interval training OTHER

22 min of cycling exercise on a stationary bike with a warm-up at a resistance of 25 W, followed by four 30-s 'all-out' sprints, each with a 4-min recovery intervals at 25 W

Also known as: SIT

Experimental group

Reduced-exertion high-intensity interval training OTHER

10 min of cycling exercise on a stationary bike with a warm-up at a resistance of 25 W, followed by two 20-s 'all-out' sprints, with a 3-min and a 4-min recovery interval at 25 W after the first and second sprint respectively

Also known as: REHIT

Experimental group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 40 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• Healthy men and women

You may not qualify if:

• Age \<18 or \>40 y
• Answering yes to one or more questions of the physical activity readiness questionnaire (PAR-Q)
• Resting heart rate ≥100 bpm
• Clinically significant hypertension (\>140/90 mm Hg)
• Students studying Sport and Exercise Science

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Stirling: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Stirling

Stirling, Stirlingshire, FK9 4LA, United Kingdom

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Health Behavior

Interventions

High-Intensity Interval Training

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Behavior

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Physical Conditioning, Human; Exercise; Motor Activity; Movement; Musculoskeletal Physiological Phenomena; Musculoskeletal and Neural Physiological Phenomena

Study Officials

• Niels Vollaard, PhD

  University of Stirling

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: November 9, 2023
• First Posted: November 20, 2023
• Study Start: November 13, 2023
• Primary Completion: June 30, 2024
• Study Completion: April 30, 2025
• Last Updated: April 29, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

GB (1)