Exercise-induced fatigue impairs visuomotor adaptability in physical education students

Abstract

Purpose: Physical exercise has been shown to exert various effects on visuomotor processing and motor learning. The present study aimed to examine the impact of exercise with progressively increased physical load on consecutive stages of perceptual-motor learning. We compared the effectiveness of visuomotor adaptability in four subsequent trials during a complex coordination task performed in different conditions, including under conditions of progressively increased physical load, and in non-exercise resting control conditions. Material: Twenty-seven physical education university students participated in this study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two group: (1) an exercise experimental group (n = 14), or (2) a non-exercise resting control group (n = 13). Methods: Participants in the experimental group performed three 10-minute effort-tests with increasing intensity on a cycloergometer. Each participant was assigned individual workload values below the lactate threshold (40% VO2max), at the lactate threshold (60% VO2max), and above the lactate threshold (80% VO2max). Four sessions of the two-hand coordination test included in the Vienna Test System were used to examine visuomotor adaptability variation. The total time duration, total error duration, and coordination difficulty were analyzed. Results: There was a significant interaction between number of test repetitions and group (experimental, control) for total duration ( F (3,75) = 3.54, p = 0.018). In particular, there was a significant reduction ( p = 0.006) in duration in the control group after fourth test repetitions as compared to the baseline. In the experimental group, in contrast, there was a tendency for duration to increase after exercise above the lactate threshold intensity. There was also a significant interaction between test repetitions and group for total error duration ( F (3,75) = 3.14, p = 0.03). Conclusions: The results suggest that high intensity exercise can disrupt visuomotor processing during complex skill acquisition. These findings highlight the interplay between exercise intensity and motor control and learning, which in turn, has practical implications for developing and improving motor training and physical education programs.