Environmental barriers meet functional limitations: an exploratory qualitative study on the usage and experience of outdoor gym among older adults

Outdoor gyms are widely used in urban public spaces, yet there is a lack of specialized research for older adults in urban parks from the perspective of functional limitation.

This study conducted in-depth interviews with 30 older adults via purposive sampling and used thematic analysis to explore their usage and experience of outdoor gym in urban park and related environmental and individual influencing factors.

Results show that outdoor gym have positive impacts on the physical, psychological and social health of older adults. The main motivations include pursuing physical health and satisfying social and emotional needs. Individual constraints involve declines in lower limb function, balance, flexibility, as well as visual and cognitive impairments. Environmental support factors include pleasant natural settings, low noise, comfortable thermal conditions and diverse equipment, while environmental pressure factors include bad weather, insufficient or poorly maintained equipment, noise and inadequate lighting. Older adults proposed optimization suggestions covering safety, information accessibility, comfort and equipment suitability.

This study deepens the understanding of environment-behavior interactions in older adults with functional limitations, offering a valuable empirical baseline for rehabilitation-oriented design for healthy aging.