Developing and Validating a New Physical Activity Goal Instrument: Can the Reasons to Exercise (REX) Scale Identify Profiles that Enhance Physical Activity Behaviors?

Understanding what moves people to be physically active is key to identifying sources of motivation critical to promote engagement, persistence, and adherence in physical activity (PA) programs. Three separate, but related, studies were conducted to develop and validate comprehensive PA goal measure, the Reasons to Exercise (REX) Scale, and establish it as a viable measurement of reasons people have for exercising and/or being physically active. Study 1 developed the final REX Scale item pool. Initial evidence suggested the REX Scale was a valid and reliable measure, although additional work will need to be done to refine the instrument. Examination of the REX revealed nine latent factors held up under both the unrestricted (i.e., exploratory factor analyses) and restricted (i.e., covariance modeling), and based on Cronbach’s alpha, the items within each hypothesized dimension were similar and closely related. Following the development of the REX, Study 2 assessed the psychometric properties of the Reasons to Exercise-Version 2 (REX-2) in another sample of active adults. A nine-factor, 36-item instrument demonstrated the REX-2 as a useful tool for measuring the reasons people have for exercising in two sample of adults. The multi-group CFAs for gender and age provided reasonable evidence of measurement and structural invariance using the difference in CFI scores as the criterion. Finally, Study 3 examined how clusters created by cluster analysis using reason subscales and PA categories differed across behavioral regulation, passion, mindsets, and PA patterns. The REX-2 subscales were used to create four unique, meaningful reason profiles, and five PA profile groups were formed using PA subscales. Differences among the reason and PA profiles were supportive of model predictions. In the reason profiles, the number of valued reasons and individuals exhibiting more autonomous-focused reasons for being physically active led to more desirable outcomes that those with fewer valued exercise reasons or individuals exhibiting more control-focused reasons. In the PA profile findings, motivation was critical to PA engagement, and individuals engaging in higher-intensity type of physical activities were more autonomously motivated.doctoral, Ph.D., Movement & Leisure Sciences -- University of Idaho - College of Graduate Studies, 201

REGIONAL COMPARISONS: THE WORLDWIDE SURVEY OF FITNESS TRENDS

For the last 14 years, the editors of ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal® (FIT) have administered an electronic survey to thousands of fitness professionals around the world to determine health and fitness trends (1-14). The survey helps predict annual health and fitness trends in a systematic way using the same methodology and helps to guide health fitness programming efforts around the world. Although the number of participating countries has ranged from 10 to 36 depending on the year, both Europe and South America have independently sought to utilize the worldwide ACSM survey to explore their own fitness sectors. Additionally, China is in its third consecutive year of surveillance and also has contributed to the Worldwide Fitness trends. Even though there could be an assumption that many trends identified in ACSM’s Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends also may appear in other regions, this may not be the case. Therefore, it is important to have specific data from several European and South American countries to add to the established China and North America surveys to provide a more global understanding as to what extent the trends are confirmed in different regions around the world. In this article, the top 20 fitness trends from surveys in North America, China, Europe, and South America are compared. The authors thank our colleagues from Europe, South America, and China for replicating the methodology of ACSM’s Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends in an effort to provide guidance for health fitness professionals in their region

Fitness Trends from around the Globe

Apply It! From this article, the reader should be able to do the following: • Identify top 20 fitness trends for Australia, Brazil, China, Europe, Mexico, Spain, and the United States • Recognize individual and unique fitness trends represented within Australia, Brazil, China, Europe, Mexico, Spain, and the United State