Young adults with and without Generalized Anxiety Disorder are at-risk for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Transient feelings of depressed mood (feeling sad, empty, hopeless, gloomy), or ‘depressed mood state’, is a primary characteristic of MDD, and is present for most of the day, nearly every day, during a depressive episode. Our previous research found promising, large-magnitude, potentially clinically-meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms following eight weeks of World Health Organization and American College of Sports Medicine guidelines-based resistance exercise training (RET) in young adults with and without subclinical, or analogue, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (AGAD). Here, we quantified the effects of a single guidelines-based resistance exercise session compared to quiet rest on depressed mood state among young adults with and without AGAD. Resistance exercise and quiet rest induced similar, small-magnitude reductions in depressed mood state that were not significantly different to each other among the total sample with low pre-condition symptoms. Exploratory sub-analyses revealed large-magnitude, 0.82-1.26 standard deviation reductions in depressed mood state following resistance exercise among participants with elevated pre-condition symptoms. Although we cannot rule out that resistance exercise and quiet rest might be equally effective in practice, the results of the exploratory analyses suggest that clinically-meaningful or noticeable reductions in depressed mood state are possible by 10-minutes post resistance exercise, which warrants further research among higher-risk populations.
O’Sullivan D, Gordon BR, Lyons M, Meyer JD, Herring MP. Effects of Resistance Exercise on Depressed Mood State: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2025. doi:10.1249/mss.0000000000003769.
Darragh O’Sullivan is a final year, IRC-funded PhD Research Student conducting meta-analytic and experimental investigations of resistance exercise training effects on anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Contact: Darragh.OSullivan@ul.ie X: @Darragh_Sully LinkedIn: darraghsully
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