The public health problem of physical inactivity has proven resistant to research efforts aimed at elucidating its causes and interventions designed to alter its course. Thus, in most industrialized countries, the majority of the population is physically inactive or inadequately active. Most theoretical models of exercise behaviour assume that the decision to engage in exercise is based on cognitive factors (e.g. weighing pros and cons, appraising personal capabilities, evaluating sources of support). Another, still-under-appreciated, possibility is that these decisions are influenced by affective variables, such as whether previous exercise experiences were associated with pleasure or displeasure. This review examines 33 articles published from 1999 to 2009 on the relationship between exercise intensity and affective responses. Unlike 31 studies that were published until 1998 and were examined in a 1999 review, these more recent studies have provided evidence of a relation between the intensity of exercise and affective responses. Pleasure is reduced mainly above the ventilatory or lactate threshold or the onset of blood lactate accumulation. There are pleasant changes at sub-threshold intensities for most individuals, large inter-individual variability close to the ventilatory or lactate threshold and homogeneously negative changes at supra-threshold intensities. When the intensity is self-selected, rather than imposed, it appears to foster greater tolerance to higher intensity levels. The evidence of a dose-response relation between exercise intensity and affect sets the stage for a reconsideration of the rationale behind current guidelines for exercise intensity prescription. Besides effectiveness and safety, it is becoming increasingly clear that the guidelines should take into account whether a certain level of exercise intensity would be likely to cause increases or decreases in pleasure.

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An experiment is reported which tests Fazey & Hardy's (1988) catastrophe model of anxiety and performance. Eight experienced basketball players were required to perform a set shooting task, under conditions of high and low cognitive anxiety. On each of these occasions, physiological arousal was manipulated by means of physical work in such a way that subjects were tested with physiological arousal increasing and decreasing. Curve-fitting procedures followed by non-parametric tests of significance confirmed (p less than .002) Fazey & Hardy's hysteresis hypothesis: namely, that the polynomial curves for the increasing vs. decreasing arousal conditions would be horizontally displaced relative to each other in the high cognitive anxiety condition, but superimposed on top of one another in the low cognitive anxiety condition. Other non-parametric procedures showed that subjects' maximum performances were higher, their minimum performances lower, and their critical decrements in performance greater in the high cognitive anxiety condition than in the low cognitive anxiety condition. These results were taken as strong support for Fazey & Hardy's catastrophe model of anxiety and performance. The implications of the model for current theorizing on the anxiety-performance relationship are also discussed.

Data are consistent with the proposals of the dual-mode model and support the use of self-selected intensity with sedentary individuals to promote positive affective responses.

Using a mixed-method approach, the aim of this study was to explore affective responses to exercise at intensities below-lactate threshold (LT), at-LT, and above-LT to test the proposals of the dual-mode model. These intensities were also contrasted with a self-selected intensity. Further, the factors that influenced the generation of those affective responses were explored. Nineteen women completed 20 min of treadmill exercise at each intensity. Affective valence and activation were measured, pre-, during and postexercise. Afterward, participants were asked why they had felt the way they had during each intensity. Results supported hypotheses showing affect to be least positive during the above-LT condition and most positive during the self-selected and below-LT conditions. Individual differences were greatest in the below-LT and at-LT conditions. Qualitative results showed that factors relating to perceptions of ability, interpretation of exercise intensity, exercise outcomes, focus of concentration, and perceptions of control influenced the affective response and contributed to the individual differences shown in the quantitative data.