According to Anshel, exercise psychology evolves around the following topics:
- Motivation
- Barriers of Exercise
- Exercise Adherence
- Exercise Dependence (addiction)
- Exercise’s relationship with mental health issues
- Interventions
- Cognitive and behavioral strategies and their effect on exercise
- Personality traits and characteristics of exercises
What Do Personal Trainers Need to Know About Exercise Psychology?
Exercise psychology aims to encourage healthy exercise behaviors or tries to use exercise as a possible mechanism or pathway to achieve better health (both physical and mental.) Regular exercise behavior is intended to enhance and maintain the exerciser’s well-being and health. Exercise psychology concerns with the effects of exercising on the quality of the individual’s life. In this way, the realm of exercise psychology must be viewed in light of both its cause and effect in relation to the client.
In the development of their psychological skills and capabilities, this can be almost as difficult to achieve for some as much as their physical capabilities. Most aspects of working co-actively with a client will require an understanding of how our client presents themselves normally. This includes their traits or their steady state. When described this way, we can easily see that we are also referring to personality, typical responses and attention levels. These are dimensions of your client’s psychological core.
This might also include stress management skills, the level of intensity tied to their concentration, or even the approach used for setting challenging – but at the same time – realistic goals. These are all psychological characteristics. For most clients, these can be learned and developed. They contribute to the performance and the well-being of the client, thus we have to know more about them and keep them operating in the background of our mind-set or approach if we are to make proper use of their application.
Psychological Attributes and Issues Related to Exercise
The lifestyle of modern humans involves much less physical activity than what is seen as optimal by researchers and health professionals. We sit a lot, many people work practically without even being able to stand up for hours. We don’t have to walk to work or school; we drive a car or use public transportation. Not only our work or professional life, but also how we seek entertainment has very little to do with physical activity. Watching TV or surfing the internet hardly requires any physical effort.
It is important to note, that inactivity in itself is not responsible for obesity, which is very com-mon. Especially in the USA, where nearly 65% of the adult population is overweight and the obesity situation among children is even worse. One in two children is – simply put – “fat”. Being overweight is not only an aesthetics matter or problem. Obesity is associated with other conditions, such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems, generally poor health, just to name a few.
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