Matching your workouts to your personality could give you better results, according to researchers.
For example, people who tend to be more introverted and negative may need frequent breaks and a private workout, while those who are more extroverted can reap the benefits of team sports and high-intensity classes, such as Barry’s Bootcamp or SoulCycle. People who are more open have been found to engage in exercise regardless of whether or not they enjoyed it.
“Our brains are wired in different ways, which drives our behaviors and how we interact with our environment,” Dr. Flaminia Ronca, of University College London’s Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health, explained in a statement. “So it’s not surprising that personality would also influence how we respond to different intensities of exercise.”
In the U.S., that may spur rising obesity rates. One in five children and two in five adults are affected by the chronic condition, leaving them at higher risk of many diseases. In 2020, just over 24 percent of U.S. adults met the 2018 national physical activity guidelines. A new analysis from children’s health centers in Philadelphia and Los Angeles found that the health of American kids deteriorated across a broad spectrum of indicators between 2007 and 2023.
To reach these conclusions, Ronca and her co-authors studied the behaviors of 86 participants in the U.K. They tested their baseline fitness in a lab before splitting them into two groups. One group was instructed to undertake an eight-week home fitness plan of cycling and strength training, and another continued their usual lifestyle.
All participants filled out a questionnaire regarding how much they had enjoyed their participation in the study.
The researchers particularly examined five personality traits – extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness.
“Understanding personality factors in designing and recommending physical activity programs is likely to be very important in determining how successful a program is, and whether people will stick with it and become fitter,” senior author Prof Paul Burgess, from the university’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said in a statement.
They noted that the relationship between stress levels and change in fitness, finding that stress levels of both groups were similar before the study.
After undergoing the home fitness plan, people who tended to be more neurotic exhibited a strong reduction in their stress levels.
A survey from researchers in Ohio earlier this year found that 45 percent of U.S. adults are stressed at least once a week due to the news and social media, and that 16 percent of those respondents reported feeling stressed every day. Furthermore, workplace stress has been reported to cause 120,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“It’s fantastic news, as it highlights that those who benefit the most from a reduction in stress respond very well to exercise,” Ronca said.
Previous research from the University of Missouri has shown a correlation between personality and physical function.
“We hope that if people can find physical activities that they enjoy they will more readily choose to do them,” Burgess added.
The results were published on Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
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