Match your personality to the right exercise to stay motivated

Knowing your personality type and your incentives for exercise can increase your motivation, so you’ll work out more often. For instance, people who enjoy a challenge may do better at lifting weights, while those who like social interaction get more out of group excises and sports.

On the other hand, if your reasons to exercise don’t match your choice of physical activity, it can affect how often you exercise and whether you’ll stick with it, according to researchers in a new study.

“Many individuals who initiate exercise programs may actually select activities that conflict with their interests, styles, personalities, and/or reasons for engagement,” said lead investigator Allyson Box, now a graduate student in kinesiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. She began this research as an undergraduate at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA.

“Our findings support the need for individualized exercise programs, not only from a physical standpoint, but also from a motivational standpoint,” Box said. “Taking these factors into account may impact the amount of physical activity/exercise that individuals actually complete.”

More rewards, more exercise

We all know that exercise is important to stave off morbidity and mortality, as well as to provide physical and mental health benefits. Despite knowing this, fewer than 20% of Americans get enough physical activity to reap any health benefits.

To that end, Box and colleagues undertook this study to learn which individual differences (ie, personality, motivation, regulation systems) drive an individual to choose—and stick with—a particular exercise, which ideally results in frequent physical activity.

“This has been shown in previous work, where individuals who indicate greater enjoyment, satisfaction, and self-fulfillment were more likely to engage in exercise with greater frequency and duration, as well as adhere to their exercise regimen longer,” wrote Box and coauthors.

For this study, the researchers collected data from more than 400 physically active adults (aged 18-75 years) through an online survey. Respondents identified their exercise of choice among one of five categories: resistance training (eg, lifting weights), aerobic exercise (eg, running, swimming, cycling), group exercise (eg, yoga, spin class, kickboxing), playing a sport, and CrossFit training.

The researchers assessed personality factors, motives for participation, and self-control styles using widely accepted psychological models and frameworks. Personality factors were broadly characterized as extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Motives for exercising included enjoyment, stress management, building strength, increasing endurance, weight management, appearance, social recognition, social interaction, and others.

After adjusting for age and sex, the researchers determined that individual differences in exercise motivation and self-control could predict participation frequency. People who were more motivated by intrinsic reasons—such as enjoyment, challenge, and stress management—exercised more frequently. Notably, those who picked CrossFit training ranked highest in intrinsic motivation.

How you can use these findings

All participants were highly motivated to engage in physical activity for positive health. Here’s how these findings can help keep you motivated:

• People whose primary motivation to work out comes from a sense of challenge, rather than weight management or improving health, enjoyed resistance training and sports.

• Individuals who are more highly motivated by social connectedness gravitate to CrossFit, group exercise, and sports rather than aerobic exercise or resistance training.

• You don’t care about social recognition? Group exercise may be the right activity for you. Similarly, people who are motivated by enjoyment are more likely to take up CrossFit, aerobic exercise, and resistance training compared with those in group exercise.

• You don’t have to be extroverted or conscientious to stick with exercise. Although prior researchers have shown that people who exercise tend to have these characteristics (compared with the average population), the investigators of this study didn’t find any significant personality trait variances linked with different forms of exercise.

“These findings support the notion that individual differences exist between motivational dimensions and individuals’ preference to engage in a particular physical activity mode. Further, these differences in motivation influence physical activity engagement (ie, frequency),” the researchers concluded.

Looking inward before working out

“We encourage individuals to reflect on their personality and reasons for becoming physically active before diving into a physical activity program to ensure they engage in a physical activity that is compatible with their interest, personality, and goals,” the authors advised.

They added: “Our findings suggest that it may be more than just seeking the latest ‘fitness fad’ or ‘new diet’ in order to influence health outcomes; identifying individual characteristics and motivational factors will aid in developing an exercise program that individuals will stick to over a prolonged period of time, not just a few months.”