Being and feeling addicted to exercise: Reflections from a neophenomenological perspective

Since its emergence during the 1970s, scientific research on exercise addiction has been interested primarily in the mental and physical causes and consequences of the behaviour of exercise addicts. This focus can be ascribed to the dominance of psychology and medicine among this field of research. This paper wishes to contribute to these thematic priorities and basic approaches by taking a phenomenological perspective as a basis, thus making the embodied and the personal dimension of exercise addiction the centre of attention. This approach aims towards two goals: First, it shall be pointed out that philosophy, especially phenomenology, can make a profound contribution to research concerning exercise addiction. Second, a phenomenological approach, which has so far remained mostly unknown to international sport philosophy, will be introduced, namely the New Phenomenology founded by German philosopher Hermann Schmitz. For this purpose, the objective of New Phenomenology will be explained as well as its two pivotal terms 'felt body' and 'person'. Based on this, the main features of a neophenomenological analysis of exercise addiction that puts a focus on embodied experience and one's personal situation will be outlined. Lastly, the analytical potential of New Phenomenology will be elucidated by means of an empirical case analysis.