Nature Nurtures Workouts

Current physical activity guidelines encourage adults to engage in at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity.   Yet, many people fail to achieve these goals; it is speculated that the lack of a positive affective response (resulting indirect benefits, such as improved mood) may play a role.  Isabelle Dionne, from the University Institute of Geriatrics of Sherbrooke (Canada), and colleagues completed a 12-week long study involving 23 healthy postmenopausal women, ages 52 to 59 years, who were assigned to either outdoor training or indoor training and performed three weekly 1-hour sessions of identical aerobic and resistance training.  The researchers assessed their affective states (emotional state) during exercise sessions, and depression before and afterwards.  The team observed that exercise-induced affective changes were greater among those subjects who exercised outdoors.  Outdoor workouts resulted in better mood and help to keep the subjects exercising longer than the indoor-exercising group.  The study authors report that: “Outdoor training enhances affective responses to exercise and leads to greater exercise adherence than indoor training in postmenopausal women.”