Associations Between Fitness Profiles And Psychosocial Factors Among College Students Entering A Lifetime Fitness Program

Despite evidence linking physical activity (PA) to health outcomes, college students often struggle to maintain adequate PA levels. While required college PA programs aim to address this issue, the relationship between psychosocial factors and fitness outcomes remains important to understand. PURPOSE: This study examined how exercise self-efficacy and perceived barriers relate to baseline fitness profiles in a required college fitness course. METHODS: Using a quasi-experimental pre-post design, baseline data were collected from undergraduate students (N = 2,015; age = 19.0 ± 1.7 years; 61.1% female) entering in a required semester-long Lifetime Fitness course. Fitness measures (dependent variables) included resting heart rate (HR), recovery HR, muscular endurance (1-minute push-ups), and flexibility (sit-and-reach). Psychosocial measures (independent variables) included exercise self-efficacy (5-point scale) and perceived barriers (5-point scale). Separate multiple regression analyses examined associations between self-efficacy and perceived barriers with fitness measures, controlling for age, sex, and BMI. RESULTS: Higher exercise self-efficacy (mean: 3.1 ± 0.9) demonstrated consistent associations across all measures, showing strongest relationships with regular push-ups (b = 3.9 repetitions, p < .001, R2 = 0.37), followed by modified push-ups (b = 2.0 repetitions, p < .001, R2 = 0.09), flexibility (b = 0.4 inches, p < .001) and lower resting HR (b = -1.5 bpm, p < .001). Higher perceived barriers (mean: 2.3 ± 0.7) were associated with fewer regular push-ups (b = -1.8 repetitions, p < .001) and higher resting HR (b = 1.0 bpm, p = .011). Sex differences revealed females having lower regular push-up performance (b = -13.5 repetitions, p < .001) but greater flexibility (b = 1.9 inches, p < .001) and higher resting HR (b = 2.1 bpm, p < .001). CONCLUSION: Results indicate that exercise self-efficacy and perceived barriers significantly predict baseline fitness profiles across multiple domains. The strength of these relationships varied by fitness measure and sex, with the strongest model explaining 37% of variance in push-up performance. These findings suggest that addressing psychosocial factors, especially self-efficacy, may be an important consideration in designing college PA programs.