Unpacking differences in post-exercise affective experiences between physically underactive and active individuals 2023 Sala et al

Abstract

Background: Affective response to exercise (i.e., how individuals feel during- and post-exercise) as well as post-behavioral evaluations of affective experiences with exercise (i.e., reflecting on the experience after engaging in exercise) may be important determinants of regular exercise.

Purpose: We compared post-exercise affective response and post-behavioral evaluations of exercise between a physically active and underactive group. Physically active (n = 32) and underactive (n = 25) participants completed a 10-minute treadmill bout of vigorous exercise and reported affective valence, positive activated affect, negative activated affect, calmness, fatigue and relief at various points during and/or after the bout.

Results:As expected, both groups reported an improvement in affective valence immediately post-exercise (ps < 0.001). This improvement in affective valence was associated with a concurrent decrease in negative affect (ps < 0.05) for the physically underactive group and was only associated with a concurrent increase in positive affect (ps < 0.02) for the active group. There were significant differences between physically active and underactive groups in pre-post exercise changes in positive activated affect (ps < 0.005). The underactive group reported greater relief than the active group at all-post exercise time-points (ps < 0.05).

Conclusions: These findings have implications for understanding post-exercise affective response and post-behavioral evaluations of exercise and for interventions directed at influencing the post-exercise affective response and behavioral evaluations of exercise in physically underactive individuals.

Paywall, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10865-023-00442-6

 

That's very nice and everything but the simple fact that the vast majority of people don't exercise in a recreational/fitness mode regularly makes it clear that those effects are systematically and heavily overestimated by professionals. If it was so good, people would choose to do so naturally. This isn't rocket science. And rockets fly in a straight line, not that complicated either, just very hard to achieve.

They keep wanting to base things on wishes but can't accept the simple facts about it. People do things that feel good, that make them feel better. If they aren't doing this, even though it feels somewhat good, it's that the balance of how good it feels vs how much sacrifice it takes is simple and natural. That's the huge difference this completely artificial scenario makes with real life.

Medicine wants to be more holistic, or at least feel like it, but they're still exclusively focused on what goes on in their facilities. This isn't the way to do this. Artificial scenarios are artificial, and questionnaires are never holistic. Just. Never.

 

“Post-exercise” here means up to 30 mins after exercise, so this study has no relevance as a control group for ME PEM as usually understood, e.g. 12-48/72 hours.

The authors are claiming that healthy unfit people are less tired half an hour after exercise than they were before it. This is a surprising result that might be worth unpicking to see if it could be a result of bad experimental design or an unrepresentative participant group.

BPS researchers have always asserted that deconditioned people have some degree of fatigue immediately after unusual exertion. ME exercise researchers have responded that a key difference between deconditioning and ME is in how we recover from exertion over the following day or two. (Obviously the idea that deconditioning explains why I need to rest for an hour after elevating my head to eat lunch is ridiculous, but that has often seemed like an impossible argument to win.)

But this study would suggest that deconditioning cannot explain increased fatigue experienced by many ME patients soon after unusual exertion.

The participants in this study were mostly young, so I wonder if this result is true of other population groups. I also suspect if we dig into the survey technique that we may find some oddities. At times it’s hard to tell if the researchers are comparing participants’ affective state post-exercise with pre- or during exercise; if they’ve only found that unfit people feel less tired after exercise than during it, then that’s of little interest (and wouldn’t justify the Discussion quoted above).

But if this result were to hold up and become widely known, perhaps this could be quite useful in explaining to general medical audiences that ME is not deconditioning?

 

The fact that people who don't exercise also feel good after exercise is additional evidence that pwME aren't merely deconditioned.

 

I came back from a walk and felt exhausted walking up the stairs, slowly and with a lack of strength. 40 minutes later I still feel exhausted.

It can also give a sense of vitality, good circulation and various positive feelings but that's hard to reproduce. The more typical response is feeling exhausted, often with muscle pain.

Swimming or immersion in cool water seems to make positive bodily responses to exercise more likely.