Active Older Women Differentiated RPE While Affective Responses Remained Stable During Spontaneous or Prescribed Walking

PURPOSE: To compare psychophysiological responses and walking speeds between spontaneous, self-selected and prescribed conditions in elderly active women. METHODS: Seventeen older active women participated in this investigation (66.9±5.0 yrs). The study consisted of six experimental sessions of 20-min walking: 1. spontaneous (S) where subjects performed their usual walking speed unaware that research data were being collected; 2. self-selected (SS) where subjects were instructed to walk at their “preferred intensity”; 3. self-selected reproduction (SR) where subjects used the same instructions as SS; 4. Prescribed Exertion (PE) where subjects walked at easy (PEE), moderate (PEM) and hard (PEH) exertion. The last three sessions were counterbalanced. Psychophysiological (RPE - OMNI scale, and affective valence (AV) - Feeling Scale) and heart rate (HR) were measured immediately after exercise, and distance was recorded to calculate average walking speed. One way ANOVA examined differences in dependent variables between conditions and post-hocTukey tests were used to decompose significant main effects (p<0.05). RESULTS:CONCLUSION: Active older women were able to discriminate between different prescription instructions designed to produce low, moderate and hard exertion. Interestingly, the spontaneous and self-selected intensities elicited similar walking speeds as the prescribed moderate exertion session. Public health strategies may use simple exertional cues to help guide individuals in producing moderate intensity exercise, which may lead to health-fitness benefits. The pleasurable feeling associated with this intensity may in turn improve exercise adherence.