Decision making in elite white-water athletes paddling on a kayak ergometer

The present study investigated the effects of acute paddling on performance in a typical decision-making task. It was aimed at assessing whether the effects of moderate exercise can be replicated using the feet as response effectors when physical exercise essentially solicits upper-body muscles. Twelve national-level paddling athletes performed a Simon task while paddling at a moderate (75% of maximal heart rate, HRmax) and at very light (40% of HR(max)) intensities. The results showed that the effects of moderate exercise can be generalized to exercises involving different response effectors and upper-body muscle groups. They suggest (1) that the activation-suppression hypothesis (Ridderinkhof, 2002) holds when the task is performed with the feet, and (2) that moderate exercise speeds up reaction time and impairs the suppression of direct response activation.