THE ARTICLE
While this may sound discouraging, behavioural scientists are exploring our buying decisions and trying to find ways to improve the results. In this way, they hope to help people get exercising and keep exercising.
Some research suggests that buying the equipment does influence whether people start to exercise. However, other studies show that those folks are less likely to stick with the program than people who don’t buy home gear. A study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine in October 2008 looked at what happened when 205 sedentary adults were encouraged to start exercising. Six months later, about 50% had done so. By the end of a year, about a third of them had quit. Interestingly, those who had bought home exercise gear were 73% more likely to get started; however they were also 12 percent more likely to have quit at the end of the year than those who did not buy home equipment.
What we can see from this study is that buying home equipment is part of the answer, but not a complete answer. Even more important than having the gear is believing we can exercise and that we have the power to make changes in our lives. This belief system is known as “self-efficacy”. In the study, participants who scored highly on measures of self-efficacy were 3 times more likely to be working out one year later, as compared to those with low self-efficacy scores. Whether they owned home gym equipment made no difference.
Being able to meet your own expectations about exercise is also an important factor for success. Those who were happy with the results of their workouts were twice as likely to continue exercising as those who were not satisfied.
David M. Williams, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behaviour at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who led the exercise study asks, “What is your confidence in your ability to stick to your exercise program when you’re on vacation, when you’re not feeling well, when you’re busy? The message isn’t that home exercise equipment doesn’t work. It’s just one very small piece of the puzzle, because it might make it easier to exercise, but they still have to motivate themselves to do it.”
Other ways to increase the chances you’ll stick with your workout plan are to exercise with friends or family, mastering technique, and working with a personal trainer. All of these build your confidence and improve your chances of success. However, it is still important to be able to tell the difference between real motivation to exercise, and the fantasies many have when looking for new exercise gear. “Most goals we set for ourselves tend to be unrealistically high,” said Ravi Dhar, director of the Yale Center for Customer Insights and a professor of marketing and psychology. “When you buy these machines, you probably end up focusing on one or two attributes, like how easy it is to use or having it in your home. You’re not thinking about the barriers, what you’re giving up, like the time with friends or the Internet.”
Another study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, examined ways to help people make more realistic decisions about purchases. A group of undergraduate students was asked how often they planned to exercise over two weeks. They thought they would work out five times and said they would pay about $600 for a treadmill.
Another group of students were asked how often they would exercise in perfect conditions, with no time restrictions or limits in motivation and ability. They said ten times. They were then asked how many times they would actually exercise, and they scaled it back to less than four times. Realistically, this group was only willing to pay $480 for a treadmill. So, the simple act of visualising an ideal setting versus reality can be very helpful in making realistic decisions regarding exercise and exercise equipment.
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