{"id":248557,"date":"2025-07-08T17:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T17:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248557\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T17:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T17:33:09","slug":"extroverts-and-exercise-how-personality-affects-our-approach-to-the-gym-health-wellbeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/248557\/","title":{"rendered":"Extroverts and exercise: how personality affects our approach to the gym | Health & wellbeing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Name:<\/strong> Gym personalities.<\/p>\n

Age:<\/strong> Genetically hardwired since ancient times.<\/p>\n

Appearance:<\/strong> Well, that depends on your personality.<\/p>\n

My personality is <\/strong>\u201cenjoys cake<\/strong>\u201d.<\/strong> That doesn\u2019t sound very scientifically thorough, but it\u2019s a start. Do you enjoy exercise?<\/p>\n

On the basis that I\u2019m not a masochist, no, of course not.<\/strong> Interesting. And why is that?<\/p>\n

Well, what if I\u2019m at the gym and all the big men look at me?<\/strong> In that case I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you fit an established archetype. A study<\/a> has determined that people with higher levels of neuroticism are less likely to exercise regularly.<\/p>\n

Tell me more about <\/strong>this study<\/strong>.<\/strong> University College London invited 132 volunteers to follow an eight-week exercise course, with questionnaires to fill in about their enjoyment levels.<\/p>\n

Who doesn\u2019t love<\/strong> a sweaty questionnaire<\/strong>?<\/strong> After that, they had their personalities assessed to see if they generally exhibited signs of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism or openness.<\/p>\n

And all the neurotics hated the exercise<\/strong>?<\/strong> Kind of. All the neurotics felt shy about exercising in front of other people, and preferred to do light workouts in short bursts away from everyone.<\/p>\n

What about the others? <\/strong>Those who scored highly in extroversion loved high-intensity training such as weightlifting or spin classes.<\/p>\n

Finally, a scientific explanation for why spin classes are so obnoxious.<\/strong> However, they didn\u2019t have the best overall fitness. That went to those who scored highly in conscientiousness, because they possessed a better understanding of the long-term benefits of regular exercise.<\/p>\n

Aside from underlining how awful extroverts are, what\u2019s the point of all this? <\/strong>Well, it\u2019s understood that exercise is good for you. But perhaps the reason why people don\u2019t do it is because they\u2019re picking the wrong exercise for their personality type. When was the last time you went to the gym?<\/p>\n

Several years ago. There were lots of big men, and potentially some of them were aware of my existence.<\/strong> So that isn\u2019t the right exercise type for your personality. What if you bought some resistance bands and worked out at home every morning?<\/p>\n

Yeah, maybe I\u2019d<\/strong> stick to that.<\/strong> There we go. And you should, especially if you consider yourself neurotic. The study showed that, of all the five main personality types, neurotics were the only group who experienced a significant reduction of stress after exercise.<\/p>\n

So exercise might make me less neurotic?<\/strong> It\u2019s certainly a possibility. And who knows, if you really start enjoying it, you might even become a little bit of an extrovert.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going back to bed.<\/strong> I suppose that\u2019s understandable.<\/p>\n

Do say:<\/strong> \u201cI should pick a workout that matches my personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say: <\/strong>\u201cI hear that cowering at the state of the world burns a ton of calories.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Name: Gym personalities. Age: Genetically hardwired since ancient times. Appearance: Well, that depends on your personality. My personality…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4322],"tags":[1630,105,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-248557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114818816639131532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}