Kinesiology scientist says “plug in” for a better exercise experience - College of Human Sciences

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June 22, 2009

Kinesiology scientist says “plug in” for a better exercise experience

ISU study shows distractions make bikers feel better longer

Amy Welch, assistant professor in kinesiology, measures an exerciser’s level of pleasure/displeasure while he listens to his breathing and watches his heart rate monitor.

By Steve Adams

Whether they’re pumping iron with an iPod or watching television while on a treadmill, a majority of America’s gym-goers are now “plugged in.”

Asked why they choose to tune in while working out, some habitual exercisers might report that a gym session is the only time in their day to listen to music. Others perhaps schedule their workout around the evening news. Some Iowa State kinesiology experts say people incorporate these audio or visual mediums into their workouts because they make them feel more energetic and make the exercise session seem to go by more quickly.

Amy Welch, an assistant professor in kinesiology, has empirical evidence that proves these types of audio or visual distractions benefit exercisers.

“Our results showed that if you are exercising at a relatively high intensity, employing some kind of distraction will help you feel better for longer,” Welch said. “It seems that at a certain point we want to do just about anything to not have to pay attention to our bodies. So if you are looking for a way to make yourself feel better – really, to make the experience less unpleasant – it appears that music or television does help.”

According to Welch, each participant in her recent study of cognitive appraisal during exercise felt relatively good up to their ventilatory threshold – the point at which an individual’s body transitions from mostly aerobic to mostly anaerobic energy metabolism – while exercise-biking with gradually increasing intensity.

“But when they watched music television they felt positive longer,” Welch said. “So music television seemed to prolong the induction of negative feelings that commonly occur when exercise becomes quite difficult, though this will inevitably happen if you are exercising to exhaustion.”

In collaboration with Panteleimon Ekkekakis, associate professor in kinesiology, and Erik Lind, a recent doctoral graduate in kinesiology, Welch obtained these findings by investigating the prefrontal cortex activity of relatively fit student-exercisers. With two brain oxygenation sensors – which indicate brain activity – strapped to their heads, each biker peddled at an increasing intensity until exhaustion under each of three conditions: biking on a stationary bike with headphones on but no music playing; biking while listening to one’s own breathing and watching one’s own heart rate; and biking while listening to and watching a self-selected music video on television.

The differing conditions served to manipulate the exercisers’ cognitive appraisal – how much one is thinking about what one is doing, how confident one is in doing it, and how difficult one perceives the action to be. While the first condition served as a control, the second heightened cognitive appraisal and the last condition reduced it by serving as a distraction.

Welch not only monitored the oxygen flow to the prefrontal cortex of the bikers, but also periodically asked the participants how they felt on an 11-point scale. Across all 21 participants, the results supported Ekkekakis’s previously posed theory: Cognitive appraisal controls exercisers’ pleasure/displeasure at low to moderate exercise intensities (when oxygen flow to the prefrontal cortex is high), but primarily physiological cues (such as increased respiration) influence how one feels at higher intensities (when oxygen flow to the prefrontal cortex rapidly declines).

“The underlying reasoning behind all of our research is related to the idea that if you feel good while you are exercising, you are more likely to keep exercising regularly,” Welch remarked. “So if we can understand the differences in how you feel at different exercise intensities and what factors influence those feelings, we can prescribe better exercise routines for people on a personal level.”

Welch said that the results shouldn’t be taken to suggest that there is a reduction in oxygen flow to the brain as a whole at different exercise intensities, but that there is likely a redistribution of oxygen to areas of the brain that need it more during higher intensity exercise.

“It may be that the prefrontal cortex doesn’t need as much oxygen at those high intensities because the body needs oxygen to control more important factors,” Welch said. “We don’t know where the oxygen goes, but it might likely be likely that it goes to areas more responsible for controlling movement.”

Though Welch said she hopes she will one day be able to investigate where specifically in the brain oxygen goes at very high exercising intensities, she noted that she will stay busy while she waits for technology to catch up. While planning to publish the results of this study soon, Welch said that she is continuing to study how affect is controlled so that exercise professionals can prescribe more pleasurable – and thus more likely to be repeated – workout regimens to exercisers.

Welch is now embarking on another research project with funding from the Nutrition and Wellness Research Center. The new study is designed to further explore physiological and psychological responses to exercise. She is recruiting participants for the project who are between the ages of 18 and 35 and are not currently exercising regularly. Participants will have the opportunity to receive a personal “best exercise” prescription and will be compensated. Welch asked that interested persons contact shenbaga@iastate.edu.

“My ultimate goal is to get more people to exercise more,” Welch concluded. “We will start in this little lab and take on the world.”