ENJOYMENT AND PLEASURE RESPONSES FOR VARIED COOL-DOWN DURATIONS

Abstract

PURPOSE: Assess the impact of cool-down duration with and without autonomy for selecting duration on perceptions of pleasure and enjoyment both immediately and 24 hours after exercise. METHODS: 12 participants (6 females, 6 males; BMI = 24 + 4; age = 23 + 6) completed 4 continuous, intense exercise trials after maximal exercise testing. All trials included a 2-minute warm-up followed by 20 minutes of continuous heavy exercise 10% above ventilatory threshold. Sessions were identical except for cool-down duration (1-minute, 5-minutes, 10-minutes), with an additional session allowing for self-selection of cool-down duration. Variables of interest were remembered pleasure, forecasted pleasure, and enjoyment. RESULTS: Repeated measures ANOVA revealed no differences in remembered pleasure, forecasted pleasure post exercise and forecasted pleasure 24 hours post exercise between trials (p = .883, .675, and .540). There also were no differences in enjoyment post exercise (p = .849). Exploratory analysis of effect size differences revealed relatively small differences (Cohen’s d < .2). CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest pleasure-related responses are not significantly impacted by cool-down duration or the provision of autonomy. These preliminary findings support the perspective that responses during the recovery are secondary to the experiences of the main session of exercise. Data collection is ongoing and analysis of a larger sample may yield different outcomes, but findings at this point suggest cool-down duration is not an important consideration from a psychological perspective in the construction of exercise recovery.