Effects of exhaustive anaerobic exercise administered after practice trials on the learning of a novel task

Abstract

This study sought to address and remedy a void in the motor learning and performance literature, specifically, the effects of physical fatigue on these variables. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of exhaustive anaerobic exercise performed shortly after acquisition/practice trials, on the learning of a novel task.

Sixteen year eleven volunteers (7 females and 9 males from a state metropolitan secondary school) involved in coincidence-anticipation type sports with a minimum 1-2 years sporting experience, participated in the study. Thus, a stratified sample was used. All participants were then randomly assigned to either a control (n = 8) or experimental (treatment) group (n = 8). The fatiguing task selected to fatigue the experimental group was 70 percent of each participant's peak power output (PPO) calculated from the Wingate Anaerobic Power Test (WAT) performed on a bicycle ergometer, and used as the operational definition of exhaustive exercise. Participants in the experimental group were fatigued according to their individual level of fitness, therefore, the level of fatigue was equal.

The learning task (the Bassin Timer) involved visually tracking a runway of sequentially illuminating LED's (the stimulus) at a constant speed of 14.4 km/hr. Participants sat facing the end of the runway and attempted to depress a hand-held button to coincide with the arrival of the stimulus at the target (the last LED). Acquisition/practice trials consisted of 5 blocks/sessions of 20 trials/attempts conducted over a 2 week period, interspersed with rest days. Knowledge of results were provided after each trial/attempt during this phase. Both control and experimental groups followed the same procedures, except the experimental group performed a bout of exhaustive exercise on a Repco bicycle ergometer at the designated workload one minute after completing each block/session of acquisition/practice trials. The control group received no treatment.

After all acquisition/practice trials were completed, both groups were given a four day rest (de-training period), and returned on the fifth day to perform a retention test of another 20 trials/attempts. Results from the statistical analysis using a chisquare test and Yates' Correction for small sample sizes revealed no significant difference in the absolute retention scores, and therefore learning, between the two groups (X2 (1) = 2.25 (p>.05).

A post hoc analysis found there were no statistical differences in performance between the two groups (X2 (1) = 0.125 (p>.05). Some variability in the experimental group's retention scores may indicate a concealed effect, suggesting possible learning impairment. Further study would be needed. Though no strong learning impairment effect of exhaustive exercise is apparent, the results and findings of this study should be considered as tentative.