Women After Exercise

In the research article written by Maureen O’ Dougherty and her colleagues depicts women before and after an exercise intervention. The reason this study was implemented to determine if sedentary women after the exercise intervention would remain physically active through the self-determination theory. This theory expanded on the reasoning behind motivation and cultural trends and how it developed women exercise habits, whether it be frequently or not at all. It is known that regular physical activity at the moderate level can decrease activity, but the fact that women have a low level of physical activity prompted this study. Coming into the study there was little known about motivators for physical activity for women or how these motivators …show more content…
There were parameters that needed to be met such as the participants needed to be healthy but sedentary, to have no hormonal use in the past 3 months, to not be pregnant or breastfeeding, and to not have medical conditions or medications prohibiting participation in vigorous programs. Recruitment for this study was done from May 2006 to April 2009 and was done through an email sent to female state university students and staff in the age range of 18-30 years. Those who met the criteria were then sent to a website where screening could be done. Out of 1684 women 1260 were found eligible for this study and they were separated into subgroups so the researchers could better log their data of each individual. Each set of teams were asked to complete 30 minutes of weight bearing aerobic exercise five times weekly for four months. In the first 19 months of the trail participants were asked to come back and take place in an interview or focus group to discuss their experiences with the exercise intervention. These participants were asked three main questions relating to motivation and they were: What are the reasons you decided to participate in the WISER study?) How do you feel before, during and after a workout? When it would be difficult to get a workout in, or if you don’t want to do the workout, why do you go (when you go)? These questions were guided to determine …show more content…
There was one questionable point in the study that was suspect in my opinion started with the fact that there was no control in terms of motivational devices. Their devices seem to branch from working out for the sake of others, working out for yourself, and working out to change your past lifestyle and/or habits. I would have assumed that there would be a group with no motivation tool in acted to determine if a motivational tool was truly necessary in the first place. It could have gone along the terms of just having a subgroup work out for 30 minutes just like the other groups but instead implement no special treatments. There were strong features such as how they collected participants through emailing female colleges and dependent on if they answered the email there would be a second step to see if qualifications were truly met. This two-step process insured that they would have a decent amount of participants and even with the somewhat increasing number of dropouts throughout the study they seemed to have just enough to come to a proper conclusion of their data. The motivational methods used were an integral part of this study and the implemented them perfectly in my opinion. Aside from not having a control group the way they used their tools to depict how to motivate each group to a point where their success rate would be well over 70% was outstanding. Yes, there will be