Prior reviews point to the superior
benefits of exercising in nature
vs in conventional indoor venues, particularly in terms of well-being.
However, physical exercise performance, neither in terms of efficacy
nor efficiency, has not been sufficiently addressed by past reviews
of this topic. Therefore, we conducted both a systematic review and
meta-analysis of the experimental literature that relates to differences
in exercise performance and well-being between exercising in nature
and in conventional indoor venues. Forty-nine relevant studiesthe
outcome data of which were used for the systematic reviewwere
located within the Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus databases. The
meta-analyses,
using data from twenty-four of the relevant studies, revealed no significant
overall environmental effect on task performance efficacy outcomes
(p = 0.100). For nature-based exercise, however,
marginally positive cognitive performance outcomes (p = 0.059), lower ratings of perceived exhaustion (p = 0.001), and higher levels of vigor (p = 0.017)
were observed, indicating higher performance efficiency. As for the
effects of environment on well-being, positive affect was significantly
higher for nature-based exercise (p = 0.000), while
perceived stress was significantly higher for indoor exercise (p = 0.032). These results must, however, be interpreted
with caution. High levels of bias and between-study heterogeneity
were observed. Nonetheless, given several noticeable trends in the
results, it may be that exercising in nature enhances the efficiency
of exercise task performance to a greater extent than does indoor
exercise.