How does your exercise environment influence your workouts?
Do you workout harder when you're at the gym as opposed to when you're at home? What about when you workout by yourself as opposed to working out with others? Do you workout longer or harder or do you find it's easier to cut things short when you're alone?
We talk a lot about the motivation to exercise, but one thing we may not think about is how our environment influences our workouts. Specifically, how working out alone or with others, at the gym or outside, may change how hard or how long you exercise. There was an interesting study about this in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Researchers set out to investigate whether the intensity and duration of exercise bouts differed across physical and social environments. Using data from the American Time Use Survey, researchers found that:
- People exercised at a higher intensity when alone as compared to working out with others
- People worked harder at the gym than they did at home or outdoors
- People exercised longer during outdoor workouts
- Exercise sessions were shorter when people worked out by themselves
I found this study interesting, simply because knowing how you respond to different situations may help you get more out of your workouts. For example, I know that when my husband and I go running together, I run faster than I normally do and he runs longer than he normally does. On the other hand, he works harder at lifting weights at the gym, while I do much better at home. Knowing that kind of information helps me figure out where, and with whom, I can get the most out of my exercise time.
What about you? Do you prefer to workout by yourself and, if so, how does that change the intensity or duration of your workouts? Do you do better working out with friends? At the gym? How have you used that information to create a better workout program? Leave a comment and tell us about your best exercise environment.
Source:
Dunton, G.; Berrigan, D.; Ballard-Barbash, R.; et al. Environmental Influences on Exercise Intensity and Duration in a U.S. Time Use Study. September 2009 - Volume 41 - Issue 9 - pp 1698-1705.
How does your exercise environment influence your workouts? originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 07:00:08.