How One Feels During Resistance Exercises: A Repetition-by-Repetition Analysis Across Exercises and Loads
in International Journal of Sports Physiology and PerformanceClick name to view affiliation
Context: The Feeling Scale (FS) is a unique and underexplored scale in sport sciences that measures affective valence. The FS has the potential to be used in athletic environments as a monitoring and prescription tool. Purpose: To examine whether FS ratings, as measured on a repetition-by-repetition basis, can predict proximity to task failure and bar velocity across different exercises and loads. Methods: On the first day, 20 trained participants (10 females) completed 1-repetition-maximum (1-RM) tests in the barbell bench and squat exercises and were introduced to the FS. In the following 3 sessions, participants completed 3 sets to task failure with either (1) 70% 1-RM bench press, (2) 70% 1-RM squat (squat-70%), or (3) 80% 1-RM squat (squat-80%). Sessions were completed in a randomized, counterbalanced order. After every completed repetition, participants verbally reported their FS ratings. Bar velocity was measured via a linear position transducer. Results: FS ratings predicted failure proximity and bar velocity in all 3 conditions (P < .001, R2 .66–.85). Based on the analysis, which included over 2400 repetitions, a reduction of 1 unit in the FS corresponded to approaching task failure by 14%, 11%, and 11%, and to a reduction in bar velocity of 10%, 4%, and 3%, in the bench, squat-70%, and squat-80%, respectively. Conclusion: This is the first study to investigate whether the FS can be used in resistance-training environments among resistance-trained participants on a repetition-by-repetition basis. The results indicate that the FS can be used to monitor and prescribe resistance training and that its benefits should be further explored.
The authors are with the School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, and the Sylvan Adams Sports Inst, and Emanuel, also the School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Supplementary Materials
- Supplementary Materials (PDF 382 KB)
© 2023 Human Kinetics