However, how strongly people were affected by their friends did vary depending on their profile.
Exercise is especially infectious for men
Men appeared to be more easily influenced than women and were particularly influenced by their male friends.
Women were moderately influenced by other women, but unaffected by men.
Runners who were typically lazier had a strong influence on their more active friends: their active friends didn’t want to feel they were being left behind in their training efforts.
The opposite, however, was not true: less active people were very used to seeing (and ignoring!) status updates from their active friends and tended to just carry on as normal.
Who will be your exercise influencers?
If you’re struggling to stick to your exercise routine, it seems you need to surround yourself with friends of the same gender who are being active, and whose activity will spur you on to be active yourself.
It could be as simple as agreeing with your friends that you’ll do a class together; you’re much less likely to drop out if you feel you’ll be letting your friends down.
But why not harness the power of your social media network too? Rather than leave it to chance that you’ll see updates, you and your friends could create a group and all agree to post workout updates as a way to keep each other motivated. It then doesn’t matter if you come to Aspria on your own or with friends – you’ll still want to do it so you don’t get left behind by your online group.
And if you really want a kickstart when you’re feeling demotivated, let’s hope one of your less active friends posts an update on social media about a great workout they’ve just done!
Find your health & fitness club on www.aspria.com.
