Acute affective responses to high-intensity interval exercise: Implications on the use of different stimulus-recovery amplitudes

Bruno Ribeiro Ramalho Oliveira; Tony Meireles Santos; Renato de Carvalho Guerreiro; Igor D'Amorim; Eduardo Lattari; Andréa Camaz Deslandes

doi:10.1080/17461391.2021.1973572

Acute affective responses to high-intensity interval exercise: Implications on the use of different stimulus-recovery amplitudes

Eur J Sport Sci. 2022 Nov;22(11):1775-1785. doi: 10.1080/17461391.2021.1973572. Epub 2021 Sep 13.

Authors

Bruno Ribeiro Ramalho Oliveira¹, Tony Meireles Santos², Renato de Carvalho Guerreiro³, Igor D'Amorim², Eduardo Lattari^{1

4}, Andréa Camaz Deslandes⁵

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Physical Activity, Health and Performance; Physical Education and Sports Department, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Brazil.
² Physical Education Department, Pernambuco Federal University, Recife, Brazil.
³ Sports Department, Physical Education, Physiotherapy, and Occupational Therapy School, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
⁴ Physical Activity Sciences Postgraduate Program, Salgado de Oliveira University (UNIVERSO), Niterói, Brazil.
⁵ Psychiatry Institute, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

PMID: 34445933
DOI: 10.1080/17461391.2021.1973572

Abstract

The effect of high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) on affective responses is unclear due to the several variables of HIIE, which may be minimized by using derived variables (e.g. amplitude). The amplitude reflects the difference between stimulus and recovery intensities, being more representative of the physiological changes than central tendency variables such as average intensity. This study aimed to compare the affective responses in HIIE sessions in different amplitudes with a vigorous-intensity continuous exercise (VICE) session. Eleven participants completed five sessions. The peak oxygen consumption (VO_2Peak) and peak power (W_peak) were measured. Participants performed one VICE and three HIIE sessions (10x[1min-90%W_Peak/1min-50%W_Peak]; 10x[1min-100%W_Peak/1min-40%W_Peak]; and 10x[1min-110%W_Peak/1min-40%W_Peak]). The exercise sessions were performed at the same average intensity (70%W_Peak) and duration (20 min). The Feeling Scale (FS) was applied in each minute throughout the exercise sessions. Regarding the FS responses, a two-way repeated-measures ANOVA showed no significant interaction for FS (P=0.093) or main effect for condition (P=0.206) and time (P=0.078), indicating that irrespective of the amplitude of the HIIE, FS results were similar between conditions. The effect size (ES) analysis showed a small effect in favour of HIIE-90/50 (ES=0.30) and HIIE-100/40 (ES=0.26) and a null effect on HIIE-110/30 (ES=0.08) when compared to VICE. Chi-squared analysis showed no significant differences between conditions in the number of participants that reduced, maintained, or increased the FS from pre-exercise to last stimulus and recovery indicating a high variability of the affective responses. HIIE sessions provide similar affective responses when performed at the same average intensity, even with different amplitudes.Highlights HIIE amplitude reflects the difference between stimulus and recovery intensities and seems not to modulate the affective responses to HIIE sessions configured with different amplitudes.HIIE sessions performed at the same average intensity and different amplitudes result in similar affective responses.High inter-individual variability of affective responses occurs in HIIE sessions configured based on the amplitude.

Keywords: Psychology; aerobic fitness; behaviour; health.

MeSH terms

Exercise / physiology
Heart Rate / physiology
High-Intensity Interval Training* / methods
Humans
Oxygen Consumption / physiology
Pleasure / physiology