Faustino, TatianaSantos, AbelTeixeira, EduardoCid, LuisMonteiro, DiogoRodrigues, Filipe2021-04-032021-04-032021-03-29Rodrigues,F.; Faustino,T. ;Santos, A. ;Teixeira, E.; Luís Cid & Monteiro,D. (2021) How does exercising make you feel? The associations between positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and vitality, International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/1612197X.2021.19077661557-251Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10400.15/3442The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between regular physical exercise and affective responses to the behaviour, and to investigate the relationship with life satisfaction, self-esteem, and vitality. In total, 264 Portuguese exercisers (female = 157) aged between 18 and 69 years (M = 12.93; SD = 1.49) were considered for analysis in this study. Participants were regular exercisers with a mean year experience of 5.73 (SD = 3.19). Looking at the results, the structural model displayed acceptable fit to the data: χ2 (314) = 515.904; p < .001; CFI = .928; TLI = .919; RMSEA .049 [.042, .057]. Overall, significant direct effects were found as theoretically proposed, namely: exercise frequency displayed a positive and significant association with positive affect; positive affect was positively associated with life satisfaction, self-esteem, and subjective vitality; and, negative affect was negatively correlated with life satisfaction, self-esteem, and subjective vitality. Exercise frequency had a positive and significant indirect effect on life satisfaction, self-esteem, and subjective vitality via positive affect, but not via negative affect.engexerciseaffectslife satisfactionself-esteemsubjective vitalityjournal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2021.1907766