Exercise behavior and strategies for intervention

The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the key determinants of physical activity behavior and to describe the current status of intervention research. Research on the determinants of physical activity is typically nonexperimental and describes associations and relations which are not causal. Intervention research is often experimental or quasi-experimental and often provides causal information. It should be noted that most of the studies reviewed in this paper focus on continuous, often vigorous physical activity. Relatively little is known about determinants of and interventions for lifestyle physical activity such as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM; Rate et al., 1995). A trend in the research on the determinants of and interventions for physical activity is to utilize psychological theory to provide a framework for understanding, predicting, and changing behavior. Social cognitive theory and the stages of change model are two of the most promising frameworks that have been utilized.