Impact of 'last experience' on affect after exercise reaching the anaerobic threshold: A laboratory investigation

The affective benefits of a single bout of exercise are widely reported, but the affect measured after exercise is influenced by several factors. One is the last experience linked to the exercise session. In this laboratory study we manipulated progressive treadmill exercise to ventilatory threshold by using cognitive tasks during and immediately after the exercise when we gauged affect and compared it to pre-exercise baseline. We assumed that the affective responses after exercise will mirror feeling states associated with the last experience (i.e., the cognitive task), rather than with exercise. We examined 53 athletes assigned to exercise or no-exercise control group. Positive and negative affect, feeling state, and perceived arousal were measured before and after intervention. The results revealed substantial improvements in affect in both groups, as based on large effects sizes. The lack of difference in the dependent measures between the exercise and no-exercise control group suggests that both groups responded to the same last experience (i.e. cognitive task) and the effects of exercise and/or sitting were wiped-out. The implication of these findings is that pre- to post-intervention exercise investigations testing the psychological benefits of a single bout of exercise may not measure what they intend to measure, but merely the affective responses to the last experience, or event before answering the questionnaire(s). In brief, the internal reliability of several studies employing the pre/post protocols may be questionable.