Beyond the Treadmill: How Your Personality Dictates Your Perfect Workout

Tailoring Workouts to Your Personality for Better Results and Greater Enjoyment

Beyond the Treadmill: How Your Personality Dictates Your Perfect Workout

                                

For many, the elusive key to consistent exercise lies in making it enjoyable. A new study, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, suggests that the solution might be simpler than we think: aligning your workout routine with your unique personality type.

Rather than enduring dreaded gym classes or forcing yourself to run, understanding your inherent traits could unlock a more engaging and effective fitness journey. "Personality determines which intensities and forms of exercises we’re attracted to," explained Flaminia Ronca, an associate professor in exercise science at University College London and co-lead author of the study, in an interview with CNN. "If we can understand that, then we can make that first step in engagement and exercise in sedentary individuals."

Personality and Exercise Preferences

The research found clear correlations between personality traits and exercise preferences:

Beyond the Treadmill: How Your Personality Dictates Your Perfect Workout

                                

Extroverted individuals gravitate towards high-intensity training sessions that involve social interaction, such as team sports.

Those scoring high on "neuroticism" (a measure of emotional instability) tend to prefer private workouts, away from watchful eyes, and incorporating short breaks.

 

People with high "conscientiousness" are more likely to pursue a well-rounded fitness regimen, largely driven by the understanding that exercise is beneficial for their health, according to Ronca.

Implications for Public Health

These findings carry significant weight for global public health efforts. With only a fraction of adults (22.5%) and adolescents (19%) worldwide meeting the World Health Organization's recommended 150 minutes of physical activity per week, a more personalized approach to exercise could be a game-changer.

Beyond the Treadmill: How Your Personality Dictates Your Perfect Workout

                            

"Typically … we tell people to exercise and just say, ‘We know high-intensity interval training is good for you, so you should do it,’" noted Angelina Sutin, a professor at Florida State University specializing in personality and health, who was not involved in the study. "But for people high in neuroticism, they’re not going to do it, and we also know that low-intensity exercise can be beneficial too. Knowing that somebody is high in neuroticism, recommending that kind of exercise, maybe people will be more likely to engage in it."

Interactions and Unexpected Benefits

It's also important to remember that personality traits don't operate in isolation. As Ronca pointed out, individuals can excel in multiple traits. For example, someone high in both neuroticism and conscientiousness might find exercise anxiety-inducing but will likely engage in it because they understand its health benefits.

To arrive at their conclusions, Ronca and her colleagues had 132 participants (aged 25-51) complete a personality questionnaire based on the widely used "Big Five" model (extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness). As Paul Burgess, a professor of neuroscience at UCL and co-lead of the study, explained to CNN, "Personality traits … they’re just descriptions of the way people behave in certain situations."

Participants then underwent fitness tests and were divided into two groups: one followed an eight-week cycling and strength plan, while the control group performed 10 minutes of stretching weekly. Of the original participants, 86 completed the full study.

Beyond the Treadmill: How Your Personality Dictates Your Perfect Workout

                        

While fitness improved across all personality types in the cycling and strength groups, enjoyment varied significantly. Extroverted individuals enjoyed the high-intensity lab tests more, while those scoring high in "neuroticism" preferred light-intensity home-based sessions.

Notably, the study also revealed a significant impact on stress levels. Individuals with high neuroticism scores experienced a substantial reduction in self-reported stress after eight weeks of exercise, a more pronounced decrease than in any other group. "Those who would benefit the most from stress reduction are the ones who actually showed a decrease in stress following those eight weeks of exercise," Ronca emphasized. "And I think that’s quite a powerful message to give."

Given the extensive benefits of exercise, including its power to reduce stress, both Ronca and Burgess hope these findings empower people to explore alternative workout methods beyond traditional, potentially off-putting routines. "There’s a danger, perhaps, that the focus becomes … competitive sports and serious engagement at a time when young people are starting to have lots more demands on them," Burgess cautioned. "There are a lot of personalities that don’t respond well to that kind of situation, that find it quite stressful."