Are changes in physical fitness, body composition and weight associated with exercise attendance and dropout among fitness club members? Longitudinal prospective study
Gjestvang and colleagues recruited a hundred and twenty-five untrained people who had just joined one of twenty-five gyms in Oslo, and measured them at the start, after three months and after a year, taking maximum oxygen uptake, maximum strength on two lifts, body composition and weight, alongside self-reported attendance. They then compared those who attended regularly, those who attended rarely and those who had stopped altogether. Only one measure separated the groups: aerobic fitness. Regular attenders had higher maximum oxygen uptake than dropouts at three months, and the difference persisted at a year. Strength and body composition showed no association with whether people kept coming. Almost everyone had joined for the same stated reason, to get fitter. The study is small and observational, so it cannot say whether improving fitness keeps people coming or the people who keep coming were always going to improve, but it makes a useful point about which changes people appear to notice. This vault cites it alongside the Rio attrition study.
Gjestvang and colleagues recruited a hundred and twenty-five untrained people who had just joined one of twenty-five gyms in Oslo, and measured them at the start, after three months and after a year, taking maximum oxygen uptake, maximum strength on two lifts, body composition and weight, alongside self-reported attendance. They then compared those who attended regularly, those who attended rarely and those who had stopped altogether. Only one measure separated the groups: aerobic fitness. Regular attenders had higher maximum oxygen uptake than dropouts at three months, and the difference persisted at a year. Strength and body composition showed no association with whether people kept coming. Almost everyone had joined for the same stated reason, to get fitter. The study is small and observational, so it cannot say whether improving fitness keeps people coming or the people who keep coming were always going to improve, but it makes a useful point about which changes people appear to notice. This vault cites it alongside the Rio attrition study.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Gjestvang, C., Stensrud, T., Hansen, B. H., Kolle, E. & Haakstad, L. A. H. (2019). "Are changes in physical fitness, body composition and weight associated with exercise attendance and dropout among fitness club members? Longitudinal prospective study." BMJ Open, 9(4), e027987.
Where we use it
- Nobody Is Born Consistent, Why We Move
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-027987
DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-027987