Initiation and Maintenance of Physical Exercise: Stage-Specific Effects of a Planning Intervention

Achieving a recommended level of physical exercise is a difficult self-regulatory task for many patients in rehabilitation. Psychological interventions are designed to improve initiation and maintenance of exercise. A challenging research question is whether such interventions can be tailored to the special needs of patients at different stages of behavioral change. In particular, this article investigates whether action planning is beneficial for those patients who have the intention to exercise but do not perform physical activities at the recommended level. In a longitudinal (4 waves) study with 560 rehabilitation patients, a planning intervention was evaluated. Action plans and exercise behaviors were higher in the experimental planning group than in the no-treatment control group. Patients with the intention to exercise but who have been inactive benefited more from the planning intervention than patients without the intention to act or patients who had been active before. The results suggest that matching treatments to people in a particular stage is a promising procedure. Moreover, if patients formed intentions and action plans, they were more likely to adhere to the recommended level of exercise.