Exercising With Others, Motivation, and 1-Year Maintenance of Exercise Behavior Among Workers.

Background: Maintaining exercise behavior is important for health. Although exercising with others may be an effective strategy for maintaining this, the association between exercising with others and the maintenance of it as well as the mediators of this association remain unconfirmed. The present study examined whether exercising with others was longitudinally and positively associated with 1-year maintenance of exercise behavior, and this association was mediated by exercise motivation among workers.

Methods: This study used data of an online survey-based longitudinal cohort study on 2819 Japanese workers who performed exercise at baseline and responded to a 1-year follow-up survey. This study analyzed 1-year follow-up data of participation in exercise; baseline and 1-year follow-up data of weekly exercise time; and baseline data of exercising with others, exercise motivation, and demographic factors. Participation in exercise (model 1) and weekly exercise time (model 2) after 1 year were indices of 1-year maintenance of exercise behavior.

Results: Adjusting for demographic factors, path analyses showed that exercising with others at baseline indirectly and significantly predicted 1-year maintenance of exercise behavior, mediated by exercise motivation and weekly exercise time at baseline (standardized total associations, 0.07 in model 1 and 0.18 in model 2; standardized indirect associations, 0.06 in model 1 and 0.18 in model 2).

Conclusions: This study found that exercising with others was indirectly and positively associated with 1-year maintenance of exercise behavior, mediated by exercise motivation. Encouraging participation with others may be effective in supporting motivation and maintaining exercise behavior.