Fitness: Find the right balance between pleasure and pain when you exercise

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For some people, exercise requires too much effort. Others believe it is not exercise unless you push your physical limits. This love/hate relationship with exertion often marks the dividing line between those who exercise and those who don’t. It is also the subject of numerous studies exploring how exertion can be manipulated to make it less of a deterrent to exercise.

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No matter who is exercising, the closer the workout is to requiring maximum effort, the more unpleasant the exerciser will feel. Workouts that stay in a more moderate zone generally elicit more enjoyment, although the line between when a workout goes from feeling good to feeling uncomfortable varies considerably between individuals.

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Some people maintain a level of intensity that never reaches the area where there is more pain than pleasure. But most athletes opt for a gradual increase in intensity until they have to work hard to maintain the pace, and then try to keep it there until the end of the workout.

Also popular is interval training, in which intensity peaks for short periods of time followed by equally short recovery periods. This ebb and flow style of training has been advertised as more acceptable for those who find it difficult to maintain longer sets of constant effort, although it is not yet known whether steady state or interval training is more acceptable for people who They try to exercise. a habit.

The problem is that when it comes to evaluating enjoyment during exercise, there is a clear difference in feedback depending on when the athlete is surveyed. Remembered pleasure or displeasure is clearly different from the feelings elicited during a workout. The longer the interval between the end of training and the moment the athlete reports his feelings, the more favorably he will view the training.

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Still, no matter how much time changes our feelings, there are things that we do not forget. Studies suggest that the more unpleasant the workout, the less likely we are to go back for more. However, there is a caveat. Researchers studying how enjoyment influences exercise adherence have noted a difference between recreational exercisers and athletes. For goal-based athletes, episodes of extreme effort are associated with achievement, altering their perspective not only on the importance of enjoyment during a period of exercise but also on how they rate enjoyment after training. . In this crowd, the idea that exercise has to hurt to be beneficial is ingrained in their psyche.

For everyone else, the slope of exercise enjoyment within a single workout is worthy of study. Is there a way to manipulate the moment of pleasure so that we finish workouts feeling euphoric rather than physically exhausted? And will that feeling of pleasure make the next workout less intimidating and therefore more likely?

There is some research that suggests that instead of focusing on increasing or maintaining intensity, a workout should end easier than it started. Others recommend reducing effort and ending with a purpose. Then there is the pyramid format that starts with a comfortable intensity, increases to maximum effort halfway through, and decreases again as the workout ends. Each format has its pros and cons, and the results are inconclusive as to whether one design is more fun than others.

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Adding to the body of evidence is a recent study published in Sports and Exercise Psychology reviewing what researchers call the “pleasure slope” and its effects on remembered pleasure, anticipated pleasure, and enjoyment. Researchers at California State University, Bakersfield theorized that the optimal slope of pleasure occurred when athletes experienced a gradual increase and then a decrease in effort, versus an increase (the training becomes more difficult, with a maximum effort that occurs towards the end of training) or a decline. (workout increases in intensity quickly and then decreases to finish easier than you started) slope. The idea was to see if a beginning or a less intense ending was more enjoyable.

To ensure that all workouts were similar in volume and overall intensity, they all started with a two-minute warm-up followed by 30 minutes of continuous exercise and a 10-minute recovery. All protocols were equated in overall effort with approximately 20 minutes of exercise at moderately vigorous intensity and 10 minutes at or around maximal effort.

The uphill workout increased intensity by 2.5 percent every two minutes, while the downhill workout decreased intensity by 2.5 percent every two minutes. The ascent/descent protocol increased the intensity by 2.5 percent every two minutes, then at the midpoint began to decrease the effort by 2.5 minutes. Enjoyment was surveyed before exercise, every five minutes during exercise, and 10 minutes after exercise.

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Only ascending training changed the level of enjoyment over the course of training, and athletes felt worse when intensity increased continuously. The other workouts, which featured a decrease in intensity, saw no change in enjoyment from the beginning to the end of the workout.

These results refute the researchers’ hypotheses, who thought that enjoyment would increase as the intensity level decreased. It also differs from previous research that reported that a decrease in intensity resulted in greater exercise enjoyment, including greater recall of pleasure, than workouts that became increasingly difficult.

But the bottom line for the average athlete is not that the results were not as expected. Instead, noteworthy is the idea that intensity can be manipulated to provide a more enjoyable workout.

It is also important to note that individuals have very different preferences for when intensity increases during a workout and when it begins to decrease.

If you are naturally slow to start, consider that these results allow you to take your time before increasing the intensity. And if you start strong but fade down the stretch, keep going and push to the finish line. Stop fighting your natural inclination to take the path of least resistance and direct your workouts based on what makes you feel good instead of someone else’s idea of ​​the ideal training plan.

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