An experiential perspective on the motivational features of exercise and lifestyle

The purpose of this study was to describe the cognitive, emotional and behavioral concomitants of direction, intensity and persistence for exercise in individuals displaying different levels of exercise involvement. In order to attain this goal, 78 one-hour interviews were conducted with individuals who were either autonomous exercisers, fitness program enrollees, fitness program dropouts or sedentary individuals. Subjects were asked to describe their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, before, during and after a workout, and trained interviewers used probes to further tease out aspects of direction, intensity and persistence. Findings were content-analyzed to detect significant trends. Results revealed that autonomous exercisers differed from individuals with less active lifestyles in several ways: participation motives were geared mainly toward fitness-health; the aspect they enjoyed the most about their participation was the task itself; they did not need to do any planning to ensure that they regularly attended their workouts; they expended a moderately high amount of effort and intensity in pursuing their exercise; they conceded that sometimes they missed workouts simply out of fatigue and that they felt that something was missing in their life when they did not exercise. By contrast, other types of exercisers displayed different profiles. These findings replicate and extend data available in the literature and thus support the viability of qualitatively conceptualizing and assessing motivation in exercise settings.