Exercise Adherence and Habit Formation

Question 1

What percentage of people drop out of an exercise programme withing the first 6 months? (source?)

Answer 1

50%

Wilson and Brookfield, 2009

Question 2

Define Exercise Non-Adherence. (source?)

Answer 2

The failure of a patient to follow recommended health and treatment advice (DiMatteo et al, 2012)
Can be unintentional (due to presence of specific barriers like cost/accessibility) or intentional (no obvious barriers)

Question 3

Define Exercise Adherence. (source?)

Answer 3

The extent to which an individual acts in accordance with the advised interval, exercise dose and exercise dosing regimen (Conraads et al., 2012)

Question 4

What are the phases of exercise adherence?

Answer 4

Initial uptake
Adoption of main routine
Maintenance of routine
Relapse management

Question 5

What were the results of a study on a 12 week unsupervised, home-based HIIE training programme?

Answer 5

Adherers: made exercise a priority, made sure to take the time to do it, enjoyed it, and integrated it into daily life. Mechanism - self control through strength energy model
Non-adherers: found excuses, lacked agency and initiation, had an apathetic attitude and had disrupted routines. Mechanism - ego-depletion

Question 6

What are habits?

Answer 6

Actions that are triggered automatically in response to contextual cues that have been associated with their performance

Question 7

How does habit formation come about?

Answer 7

Satisfactory experiences enhance the tendency to repeat the same course of action, as the behaviour becomes more strongly associated with the goal one initially wished to attain (repetitions of positive reinforcement increase habit strength)
Once initiation of the action is ‘transferred’ to external cues, dependence on conscious attention or motivational processes is reduced. (Habits are cognitively efficient, because the automation of common actions frees mental resources)