Understanding Motivation: The Role of the Fitness Leader

The application of psychological theory within sporting contexts has increased dramatically. Generally however, awareness of the diversity of its application has been limited by an emphasis on strategies and techniques designed to enhance elite, competitive performance.

Questions such as "What makes people want to begin exercise programs?", and "What encourages people to continue exercising?" address issues important to both the individual who is struggling to achieve a desirable level of fitness, and the instructor or centre manager who is trying to encourage people to continue with their exercise Program.

The key to answering questions like these is a clear understanding of the psychological concept of Motivation.

The term motivation is used in so many different contexts that its definition varies according to the discipline or subject area in which it is discussed. Motivation has been discussed extensively within theories of personality development and more recently, in relation to competitive team sport. Perhaps the most common source of misconception relating to the use of 'motivation' comes from the manner in which it is often used in this second context.

Sports psychologists have tended to be seen as 'motivators', or people who are called upon to 'hype teams up' for big performances. As well as giving a simplistic view of the role of the sports psychologist, this practice seems to have resulted in the belief that there is an optimal level of 'motivation' which must be attained to produce the ultimate sporting performance. In reality, what is being addressed here is not motivation, but rather the concept of arousal, that is, the level of alertness, vigilance or consciousness of an individual. While arousal is an important psychological component of sporting performance, it is and should be seen as different from the concept of motivation.

Most simply put, motivation can be said to be what causes a person to behave in a certain way. While this definition is clearly a simplistic one, it nonetheless provides a useful framework for understanding what motivation is, and equally importantly, what it is not.

With this definition in mind, we can begin to address the important issues of how people become motivated to exercise, and how to help them maintain a beneficial, motivated level of exercise.

In order to judge whether a person is really motivated to behave in a certain way, (for example, to exercise), we need to have guidelines to help make this judgement. Four characteristics which indicate motivated behavior and which can therefore be used as guidelines are outlined below.
A pattern of behavior can be considered to be motivated if:

1. It is Specific and Observable. That is, it needs to be something we can see, and easily distinguishable from other behaviors.
2.The rate at which it occurs is greater than would be expected on average within the general population.
3.It occurs consistently and regularly.
4.It requires few apparent extrinsic (external) rewards.

Motivated behavior then, is a particular physical action or set of actions which occurs consistently and regularly at a rate which is greater than that which would commonly be expected, and which is carried out for little or no apparent extrinsic reward.

It is clear that a person exercising regularly, and at intensity sufficient to produce significant benefit satisfies this definition of someone displaying motivated behavior.

What then motivates people to exercise, and how do they reach a point at which their exercise behavior is motivated according to these criteria?