What’s the Best Workout For Your Personality?

You may already know that your personality can influence your relationships, your career choices and if you feel energized by an evening with friends or a quiet evening with a book. But have you realized that it can also shape your training preferences?

It is according to a recent study published in the journal Borders in psychologywho revealed links between personality traits and certain types of exercises. Associating your training with your personality, suggest the researchers, could lead to better consistency and in results.

“Our personality can influence the way we react and engage with the exercise,” said the main study of the Flaminia Ronca study, PhD, an associate professor at the University College London Health. “Knowing and knowing the personalities of our patients can help us make personalized recommendations that can produce more sustainable changes in physical activity behavior.”

Read the rest to discover which exercise plan could be good for your personality – and what else to consider when assessing your ideal training.

Tanging personality and exercise preferences

To better understand how to make physical activity more pleasant for people, researchers from the University College in London decided to study how personality affects preferences and commitment to exercise. They recruited 86 people by e-mail newsletters and social networks for an eight-week study.

To begin with, the participants filled two surveys: the stress questionnaire perceived at the scale of 10 elements (PSS-10) for their general stress levels and another used to assess personality traits, such as adventability and neuroticism. They then received fitness tests in the Ronca laboratory, followed by an assignment to one of the two groups:

• The “at rest” control groupwhich maintained their typical lifestyle behaviors and carried out 10 minutes of weekly stretching exercises (although this was not measured)
• Another carried out cycling and strength training activities at home

During the initial laboratory tests and during the first week of the study, the participants fulfilled questionnaires evaluating how much they appreciated their fitness sessions. They continued to record their collected pleasure after each exercise session. After the conclusion of the study, the participants again completed the PSS-10 questionnaire.

What is the best training for your personality?

The study did not identify exactly the exercises that individuals could prefer according to their type of personality, but it revealed certain general models connecting what is called “Big 5” personality traits and training preferences. Here is what the researchers found:

• Extrovert Like high intensity training sessions with other people around. (Think of team sports.)
• Neurosis People benefit from private training with breaks between sessions.
• Conscientious Participants tend to pile more physical activity every week and have a greater overall physical form.
• Pleasant People like to train for a while, but prefer the lower intensity exercise.
• Open People are ready to try different training sessions, no matter how curious they are about them and to assess intense and higher intensity training than other groups.

It is not surprising that the personality can strongly influence your training preferences. The features shape your desire to try new things, your perception of effort and your level of comfort in different environments – to exercise a natural outlet to express these trends, said Matthew Sacco, PHD, sports psychologist at Cleveland Clinic.

SACCO also noted that the study had been reinforced using “objective measures” rather than relying only on self -depressed data, which is common in similar research.

However, the study had limits. More than 70% of the participants were classified as open -minded, conscientious and emotionally stable, suggesting that the sample may not reflect the broader personality distribution in the general population, noted the authors. In addition, the study did not take into account the previous experience of participants with physical activity or their reasons to choose specific training.

The point to take away

According to Ronca, the adaptation of your personality type to your fitness program “could potentially maximize” exercise and overall health. Finding training sessions on which people will commit and will stick to a key to ensuring coherent physical activity, she added.

If you want to try a new type of training, Experts recommend thinking about your own personality traits and the types of activities that you generally gravitate. “It is worth paying attention to what we feel after a strength session or after a yoga or execution session,” said Ronca. “Does that energize us or make us quieter, or does it make us too tired to do something else?”

However, it’s also important to consider other factors This may increase your probability of staying with an exercise, said Sacco – such as Accessibility, injury status and fitness objectives.

“Being willing to change, be flexible and finally adapt your own success plan will help you maintain longer -term advantages,” said Sacco Health. “The use of very targeted goals which include objective measures is an excellent way to build towards success.”