Cancer survivors do not rate hard work as hard work

One of my posters that I presented at the Be Active conference was about the Ratings of Perceived Exertion of the men and women who participated in my research. They were divided into 2 groups which were objectively assigned to high or low intensity exercise (as determined by weight lifted or target heart rate they had to do aerobic exercise). But at the end of each session they were asked to reported how hard they thought the session was. On average, sessions were nearly always rated as moderate to somewhat hard. The high intensity group was targeted to be hard or very hard, and they did by objective standards, but they rarely rated it as such.

After talking to the people, I used statistics to prove what they were saying, which was that the hardest aerobic activity type (even though all activities were supposed to be conducted at the same heart rate) was the only thing that would increase their rating. The two main things were a spin class and walking the stairs.

Now, something I suppose that I cannot prove with statistics is why the ratings were so low. And this is what I reckon: after enduring cancer treatments, few things seem physically hard to these people.

You can see the poster after the jump.