Regular Exercise Increases Salary Pay By 9 Percent, Study Says

Via the The Huffington Post

Regular Exercise Increases Salary Pay By 9 Percent, Study Says!  Sounds like good news...

 

Data from today's spin class,

which felt quite good, after last nights run, on which I missed two reps for a toilet break!

23 and 1/2 hours

Came across this and I though it was informative and fun;

Exercise and depression

Rather depressing itself article in The Guardian (UK) today about a study which found that exercise was not an effective treatment for depression. This goes against most of the former evidence the article can be found here.  There is a bit of a follow up discussion here as well.  The original study can is in the BMJ.  The thing about science is it is all about accepting the best evidence even if it goes against what you would like it to be, and for the moment this appears to be the best evidence! Here is a look at possible shortcomings in the study which made shed some light at the findings.

Monday spin - still a bit tired.

Went to spin this morning but still feeling a bit fatigued.  Couldn't really get my heart rate over 140 and legs weren't too good.  So not the best spin session I've ever been to but I still felt better after it than before.  And then I ran (slowly) home after teaching bootcamp.

80 hilly miles on my bike!

Yesterday I envisaged riding a nice, easy 50 mile bike ride, instead I ended up doing this:

Which at 82 miles was a bit harder and faster than my plan, and we went over most of the bigger hills in our area.  Apart from an emergency pit stop in a garage to refuel I just about made it, though my two ridding buddies were much fitter than me.  Next time I think I will take it easy as planned!  The details of the ride above are my first experience of using Strava premium to analyse bike rides.  I will let you know how useful i find it! Today then is a rest day, or a day at work if you prefer!

Facebook, physical activity and comparisons!

This article is of interest to me as it combines physical activity, in this case, pedometer step counts and comparison.  The author used Facebook as a means of enabling participants to compare their step counts with those of others in a workplace group.  The intervention reports that the comparison opportunities led to the participants increasing their step counts.  Overall the paper investigates an area of interest to me and its useful for my research.  I do find it a little strange that given the subject of the paper that it makes no reference to Social Comparison Theory or any other theory in  contextualising the findings.  There are few papers which combine physical activity and social comparison and i think an opportunity was missed here!

You can read the full paper below;

Foster, D., Linehan, C., & Lawson, S. (2010). Motivating physical activity at work: using persuasive social media extensions for simple mobile devices.


Buunk BP, Collins RL, Taylor SE, VanYperen NW, & Dakof GA (1990). The affective consequences of social comparison: either direction has its ups and downs. Journal of personality and social psychology, 59 (6), 1238-49 PMID: 2283590

Common cold, exercise and feeling fit!

Reported all over the place last week here in the UK.  Read the original paper!

Conclusions, Perceived physical fitness and frequency of aerobic exercise are important correlates of reduced days with URTI and severity of symptoms during the winter and fall common cold seasons.

Nieman, D., Henson, D., Austin, M., & Sha, W. Upper respiratory tract infection is reduced in physically fit and active adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology Conference 2010

I will be attending the Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology conference which is being held in London on 9/10th December 2010, full details are here. I get to sit on the DSEP committee as a representative as a result of being on the committee  of  PSYPAG, (Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group). Psypag are a great organisation for Psychology postgraduates and currently have several bursary scheme for UK postgraduate students, details here.  At the conference I will be manning the Psypag stand for at least one of the days so pop over and join the mailing list!

PsyPAG maintains a JISCmail list open to ALL psychology postgraduate students and is located here. This list is a fantastic resource for support and advice regarding your research, statistical advice or postgraduate issues.

You can also follow PsyPAG on Twitter and on Facebook.

Useful paper I found this week;

Silva, M., Vieira, P., Coutinho, S., Minderico, C., Matos, M., Sardinha, L., et al. (2010). Using self-determination theory to promote physical activity and weight control: a randomized controlled trial in women. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 33(2), 110-122

Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation for exercise

OK, so when was the last time you saw a public health campaign which tried to increase physical activity levels by targeting intrinsic motivations to exercise? I personally cant think of any I've seen!  Motivation for exercise can be defined as intrinsic or extrinsic.  Intrinsic motivations for exercise are behaviours that are performed for the satisfaction gained in the activity itself.  Deci and Ryan (1985) argue that intrinsic motivations are commonly those of competency, interest and enjoyment.  I exercise because it makes me feel good and I enjoy it, however most campaigns to increase PA are of the loose weight and keep healthy variety.   Deci and Ryan (2000) identified that activities which are pursued primarily for being enjoyable and interesting are known to be intrinsically motivating the reward is taking part in the activity itself!

 Extrinsic motivations for exercise include are those behaviours which are performed rewards that are external.  This would include outcomes such as getting fitter, improving appearance, weight loss or ‘toning up’.  This is taking part in an activity for reasons other than the activity itself (Taylor, Ntoumanis, Standage & Spray, 2010).  This where almost all public campaigns to increase physical activity are targeted with limited success.   Ryan et al., (1997) examined exercise adherence with regard to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.  Although motivation to exercise includes both intrinsic and extrinsic elements Ryan et al., (1997) reported that body related (extrinsic) motivations were negatively related to hours per week exercise participation and workout length, whereas enjoyment and competence were positively to these measures.  It would appear that intrinsic motivation is a requirement of continued exercise adherence and may become even more important as the timeframe of the adherence behaviour continues.  Even motivations for PA such as aiming to lead a healthy lifestyle would be viewed as extrinsic as they are being pursued for reasons other than performing the activity itself.  This is important as the public messages to encourage the uptake of physical activity and exercise are generally aimed at extrinsic motivators, i.e. weight loss, to improve body image and to improve health status.  Very few public health messages try to convince the audience that physical activity is fun and perhaps an end in itself.  Sports participation has been shown to be more likely to be motivated by intrinsic motivators such as fun and enjoyment, whereas exercise is more often linked to extrinsic motivators such as weight loss, appearance and stress management and that this difference leads to different rates of adherence (Kilpatrick et al., 2005).  Most participants in sport and exercise are likely to be motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically to a greater or lesser degree.  Researchers argue that for long term adherence extrinsic motive must be replaced by intrinsic motives i.e. enjoyment and competency or individuals are unlikely to persist in behaviour (Brawley & Vallerand, 1984: Wankel, 1993).   Many exercise interventions appear to attempt to engage individuals only at a level which appeals to extrinsic motives only such as improving fitness or appearance; this in light of the previous research has implications the success of campaigns tartgeting only intrinsic motivations for exercise. 

Ryan, R., Frederick, C., Lepes, D., Rubio, N., & Sheldon, K. (1997). Intrinsic motivation and exercise adherence. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 28, 335-354.

Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.

Taylor IM, Ntoumanis N, Standage M, & Spray CM (2010). Motivational predictors of physical education students' effort, exercise intentions, and leisure-time physical activity: a multilevel linear growth analysis. Journal of sport & exercise psychology, 32 (1), 99-120 PMID: 20167954

Social Comparison theory - more resources

As I'm off to a conference this week.  Limited time to post, so as Social Comparison is one of the most frequently searched terms that Google directs to this site I thought I would update the links and resources I have come across. 


Mussweiler, T., Rüter, K., & Epstude, K. (2004). The Ups and Downs of Social Comparison: Mechanisms of Assimilation and Contrast. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 832-844.


Suls, J., Martin, R., & Wheeler, L. (2002). Social comparison: Why, with whom, and with what effect? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5), 159.


Buunk, B., Collins, R., Taylor, S., VanYperen, N., & Dakof, G. (1990). The affective consequences of social comparison: Either direction has its ups and downs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1238-1249.


L. Festinger,L (1954). A theory of social comparison processes, Human Relations 1, 117–140


Buunk, A & Gibbons, F (2007). Social comparison: The end of a theory and the emergence of a field, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 102, 3–22.


Taylor, S., & Lobel, M. (1989). Social comparison activity under threat: Downward evaluation and upward contacts. Psychological Review, 96(4), 569-575.


Kruglanski, A., & Mayseless, O. (1990). Classic and current social comparison research: Expanding the perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 108(2), 195-208.


Buunk, B., & Mussweiler, T. (2001). New directions in social comparison research. European Journal of Social Psychology, 31(5), 467-475.









Buunk BP, Collins RL, Taylor SE, VanYperen NW, & Dakof GA (1990). The affective consequences of social comparison: either direction has its ups and downs. Journal of personality and social psychology, 59 (6), 1238-49 PMID: 2283590

Exercise for overweight or obesity

This report is a systematic review of the evidence on Exercise for overweight or obesity.  It's in the form of a  Cochrane Report.  The Cochrane Collaboration is an international, independent, not-for-profit organisation of over 27,000 contributors from more than 100 countries, dedicated to making up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of health care readily available worldwide.  It is a thorough review of the evidence in the area of obesity and exercise and its about as good a review as you will find anywhere.  The report is long, detailed and extremely useful.  I refer to it frequently and i'm sure i will do in the future too!  The report can be found here.







Shaw K, Gennat H, O'Rourke P, & Del Mar C (2006). Exercise for overweight or obesity. Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online) (4) PMID: 17054187

Physical Activity and Obesity

This article examines the role of physical activity and obesity.  It gives a useful summary of the decline of physical activity and its relevance to obesity.  It also examines the role of PA in terms of weight management and weight loss.  Hills et al. (2006) has an excellent table to illustrate where declines in physical activity in daily life may come from.

Population-wide declines in physical activity (modified from Brownson et al., 2005)

• Leisure-time physical activity: level or slightly increasing
• Work-related activity: declining
• Transportation activity: declining
• Activity in the home: declining; and
• Sedentary activity: increasing; therefore, total physical activity is declining


Hills argues that the role of increased energy expenditure through  physical activity is the key to weight loss and long term weight maintenance.The paper is available in full here .  The relationship between decline in physical activity and weight management has been covered in several previous posts.  My own favourite is Obesity in Britain: gluttony or sloth? which examines the calorific intake in the UK diet over a 20 year period and established that it has declined.  They concluded that physical activity in everyday life had declined and that this was especially the case for children.


Hills, A., & Byrne, N. (2006). State of the science: a focus on physical activity. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr, 15, 40-48.

Brownson, R., Boehmer, T., & Luke, D. (2005). Declining rates of physical activity in the United States: what are the contributors? Annual review of public health, 26, 421.  (Abstract only)

Prentice, A., & Jebb, S. (1995). Obesity in Britain: gluttony or sloth? British medical journal, 311(7002), 437








Hills AP, & Byrne NM (2006). State of the science: a focus on physical activity. Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition, 15 Suppl, 40-8 PMID: 16928660

Qualitative exercise adherence studies - participants with back pain and knee pain

Slade et al. (2009) is a qualitative study on people with non-specific chronic low back pain and examines their exercise adherence.  It examines their experiences of exercise past and present and also how they felt during the research study programme.  Many of the findings are in line with expectations from people who have been unsuccessful at establishing long term exercise behaviour, low exercise self efficacy and feelings of fear and helplessness.  The participants also reported that they felt that they lacked sufficient expertise on gym equipment and all expressed a desire for better instruction and feedback of all exercises.  Its a good qualitative paper with exerts from focus group transcripts which really help to understand how some people with injuries and chronic conditions feel about exercise and physical activity.  The full paper can be found here.

Another qualitative paper from a similar population is  Hendry et al (2006) and examines the experience of people with Osteoarthiritis of the knee.  The themes of the focus groups are broadly similar and its good to read the two studies to compare the experiences of the two groups.  The Hendry study can be found here.








Slade SC, Molloy E, & Keating JL (2009). People with non-specific chronic low back pain who have participated in exercise programs have preferences about exercise: a qualitative study. The Australian journal of physiotherapy, 55 (2), 115-21 PMID: 19463082

Spotlight on Inactivity

A report published yesterday in the UK by Professor Sir Liam Donaldson the UK Government's Chief Medical Officer, and the professional head of all medical staff in England, draws attention to the role of inactivity in the nations health.

The report states that "the benefits of regular physical activity to health, longevity, well being and protection from serious illness have long been established. They easily surpass the effectiveness of any drugs or other medical treatment. The challenge for everyone, young and old alike, is to build these benefits into their daily lives"".

Key points
• Inactivity affects 60–70% of the adult population: that is more people than obesity, alcohol misuse and smoking combined.

• The physical fitness of children is declining by up to 9% per decade.

• By increasing the risk of developing more than six major diseases, inactivity poses a significant risk to the population’s health.

• Physical activity tends to decline with age, but this decline is not inevitable.

• The potential benefits of physical activity to health are huge. If a medication existed which had a similar effect, it would be regarded as a ‘wonder drug’ or ‘miracle cure’.

Nice to see this being spelled out so clearly in the media, its getting a lot of publicity in the UK.  The report can be found here and the physical activity section starts on page 20.








Blair, S (2007). 61 Physical inactivity: the biggest public health problem of the 21st Century Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 10, 29-29 DOI: 10.1016/S1440-2440(07)70066-X

An investigation into the effect of motivational climate on participant enjoyment of children’s athletics sessions

I thought today for some light relief I would post my undergrad dissertation.  As I can actually read it and feel OK about it, i reckon its not too bad, it also got quite a good grade  It can be downloaded in full here.  Don't submit it as your own!  That's cheating!  Any questions email me!

The study was based on the using TARGET framework to influence motivational climate in children's coaching sessions, the abstract is below;

Grounded in Achievement Goal Theory (Maehr & Nicholls, 1980: Nicholls, 1984: Dweck, 1986: Ames, 1984) and with a Social Cognitive Perspective (Bandura, 1986) the study investigated the effects of motivational climate on enjoyment ratings of children's athletics sessions.   The rationale was to attempt to increase enjoyment by designing lesson plans which could utilize the reported benefits of a mastery motivational climate. It was postulated this may reduce drop out rates in children's physical activity classes.  The children n=16 (10 boys and 6 girls) mean age 9.87 took part in two sessions.  The researcher attempted to manipulate the motivational climate of the sessions using the TARGET framework, (Ames, 1992: Epstein, 1989) to design sessions with a mastery or performance motivational climate.  The enjoyment rating of the children was measured after each session.  The results indicated that the there was no significant difference in the enjoyment score rating of the two sessions.








Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84 (3), 261-271 DOI: 10.1037//0022-0663.84.3.261

Obesity, more and more reports and resources!

There are it seems more reports and strategies concerning obesity than just about anything else. The strange thing is I have yet to read a bad strategy or poorly presented report, most of the papers are excellent. Its the scale and complexity of the problem that seems to be defeating us. The best report on the causes remain in my view the UK Government Foresight report, available on this site.  There is also the recently published Scottish report Preventing Overweight and Obesity in Scotland - A Route Map Towards Healthy Weight also on this site.  

The newer reports I have come across are the not so snappily titled, Prevention of Obesity in Europe – Consortium for the prevention of obesity through effective nutrition and physical activity actions report, Tackling the social and economic determinants of nutrition and physical activity for the prevention of obesity across Europe.  Again its a useful report and has great background and research reading for those who are interested.  My favourite find is the quite wonderful, F as in Fat: How obesity policies are failing in America  .  Again great report, unfortunately a rather sobering and depressing read.  I would like to see obesity policies from around the world so if you come across one, could you please send me a link! 

Now for some blatant advertising.  My old lecturer has updated one of her publications.  Its called the Psychology of Physical Activity: Determinants, Well-Being and Interventions its a great reference or text book.  I used it as an undergrad for four years and it was useful for virtually every essay I wrote.








Trust for America's  Health (2009). F as in Fat: How obesity policies are failing in America, 1-108

Obesity in Scotland - An epidemiological briefing (2007)

Can the Theory of Planned Behavior Predict the Maintenance of Physical Activity?

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) has been applied to many areas of research in physical activity with varying degrees of success I would argue.  This paper looks at the ability of TPB to predict participation in physical activity and explored the development of activity habits in a 12-week study. Gym members completed standard theory of planned behavior measures at baseline and follow-up.  The author argues that the results suggest  that perceived behavioral control was significantly predictive of intentions and actual behavior.   That stable exercise habits developed in the first 5 weeks of the study, and that successful prior performance enhanced perceptions of behavioral control.  As part of my current research I am running a 12 week circuit training class to study adherence.  The findings of the study regarding the 5 week period for exercise habits to develop are particularly interesting as in my study the findings for this element are broadly similar.  The article can be found here








Armitage, C. (2005). Can the Theory of Planned Behavior Predict the Maintenance of Physical Activity? Health Psychology, 24 (3), 235-245 DOI: 10.1037/0278-6133.24.3.235

Chatzisarantis, N., Hagger, M., & Smith, B. (2007). Influences of perceived autonomy support on physical activity within the theory of planned behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(5), 934.

Bridging the intention behaviour gap: Planning, self-efficacy, and action control in the adoption and maintenance of physical exercise

In this paper from 2005 Sniehottaet al. examine why although some people develop an intention to change their health behaviour many do not follow through from intention to action. The gap between the intention and behaviour has been called the ‘‘intention–behaviour gap.’’ The authors examine factors which can be used to reduce the gap. They examine action planning, perceived self-efficacy, and self-regulatory strategies to investigate what effect these can have on reducing disparity between intention and behaviour. The study looked a participants who were cardiac rehabilitation patients their physical activity participation. The authors claim that "the results have implications for research on the intention–behaviour gap, and indicate that planning, maintenance self-efficacy and action control may be important volitional variables". Its well worth a read and examines what I think is a particularly interesting area in Exercise Psychology. The paper can be found here!







Sniehotta, F., Scholz, U., & Schwarzer, R. (2005). Bridging the intention-behaviour gap: Planning, self-efficacy, and action control in the adoption and maintenance of physical exercise Psychology & Health, 20 (2), 143-160 DOI: 10.1080/08870440512331317670

Let's Make Scotland More Active!

I thought i would post the Scottish Physical Activity strategy to demonstrate that a good strategy requires effective implementation. The document Preventing Overweight and Obesity in Scotland
identified that Scotland was the third most obese country in the world after the USA and Mexico. This may actually be progress as until the report we were usually named as the second! Let's Make Scotland More Active is actually a very good strategy document. It was published in 2003 but progress has been slow with little improvement in PA rates since then. PA is measured in Scotland by the Scottish Health Survey which is now published annually. Since 2003 there has been much discussion about how to go about increasing PA participation, unfortunately politicians and the media seem to be unable to grasp the difference between sport, physical activity and physical education. Policies such as children having two hours of quality physical education per week have sometimes changed to two hours of PA which could include walking to school! The policies themselves remain useful, what is required is the political will to implement them and obviously more PA research!







The Scottish Government (2003). Let's Make Scotland More Active, Edinburgh, Scottish Government (February, 2003 )

Pleasant for some and unpleasant for others: Cognitive factors that influence affective responses to exercise

This article leads on from the post Exercise does not feel the same when you are overweight. It explores how exercise feels different for different people. The authors examine the idea that individuals choose to participate in behaviours which are pleasant and avoid those that are unpleasant. This is an important area of physical activity research. The study also examines the role of the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE). The authors examine "the idea that knowing why someone feels the way he or she does during exercise...could be just as important as knowing 'how' he or she feels"and could provide significant theoretical and practical advances". The full article can be found here .







Rose, E., & Parfitt, G. (2010). Pleasant for some and unpleasant for others: a protocol analysis of the cognitive factors that influence affective responses to exercise International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 7 (1) DOI: 10.1186/1479-5868-7-15