Psychological Adaptations to High-Intensity Interval Training in Overweight and Obese Adults: A Topical Review

Abstract

Regular exercise has been reported as a fundamental piece of the management and treatment puzzle of obesity, playing a vital role in numerous psychological indicators. However, it is unclear whether high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can improve critical psychological health markers such as adherence, exercise enjoyment, affective responses, health-related quality of life, anxiety, and depression in overweight and obese adults. The purpose of this topical review was to catalogue studies investigating the psychological responses to HIIT in order to identify what psychological outcomes have been assessed, the research methods used, and the results. The inclusion/exclusion criteria were met by 25 published articles investigating either a traditional, single-component (84%) or a hybrid-type, multi-component (16%) HIIT protocol and involving 930 participants with overweight/obesity. The present topical review on HIIT-induced psychological adaptations shows that this popular exercise mode, but also demanding for the masses, can meaningfully increase the vast majority of the selected mental health-related indices. These improvements seem to be equal if not greater than those observed for moderate-intensity continuous training in overweight and obese adults. However, further research is needed in this area, focusing on the potential mechanisms behind positive alterations in various psychological health parameters through larger samples and high-quality randomized controlled trials.

The Effect of Self-Selected Exercise Workloads on Perceived Enjoyment and Self-Efficacy in Sedentary Adults

“…Studies have shown interval aerobic training to be a more enjoyable or as enjoyable form of exercise compared to continuous aerobic training. Positive psychological outcomes have been reported among sedentary obese women after participation in interval exercise; however, many of these studies employed moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in comparison to HIIT, with minimal attention paid to moderate-intensity interval training (MIIT) [7][8][9][10][11]. MICT typically involves continuous aerobic workloads of 40-60% VO 2 Reserve or heart rate reserve, a 12-13 on the Borg rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale (scaled [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], or an equivalent of 3-5.9 METs [12].…”

“…Positive psychological outcomes have been reported among sedentary obese women after participation in interval exercise; however, many of these studies employed moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in comparison to HIIT, with minimal attention paid to moderate-intensity interval training (MIIT) [7][8][9][10][11]. MICT typically involves continuous aerobic workloads of 40-60% VO 2 Reserve or heart rate reserve, a 12-13 on the Borg rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale (scaled [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], or an equivalent of 3-5.9 METs [12]. MIIT requires similar workloads to MICT, but is broken up into interval bouts, similar to HIIT.…”

National Survey of Fitness Trends in Greece for 2023

“…Aiming to explain the popularity of the aforementioned trends related to fitness activities from a scientific standpoint, a large and convincing body of evidence reveals that a HIIT may be an injury-free, efficient, time-effective, and enjoyable type of exercise for improving metabolic health, physical fitness, and well-being in populations with unhealthy weight representing the vast majority of the adult population worldwide nowadays [30][31][32]. Additionally, emerging research demonstrates that hybrid-type exercise programs incorporating HIIT, functional fitness and body weight training into a single session performed in a small-group setting induce positive alterations in various psychophysiological markers [33][34][35][36][37] among overweight and obese populations.…”

Psychophysiological Adaptations to Pilates Training in Overweight and Obese Individuals: A Topical Review

“…However, such a time-consuming exercise strategy [ 19 ] demonstrates high dropout and low adherence rates among adults with overweightness and obesity [ 20 ]. On the other hand, high-intensity interval training appears to be a time-efficient [ 21 , 22 ] and popular [ 23 ] exercise type, but such a demanding approach is not clearly feasible and attractive to populations that are overweight and obese [ 24 ] given that lack of time has been reported as a major barrier to exercise among adults [ 25 , 26 , 27 ].…”