No sweat: Exercise experts explain why fear of failure keeps fitness at bay

Wednesday, April 25, 2001 | 8:25 a.m.

Seven women wearing sweat suits, shorts and other attire commonly seen in a gym recently sat in a circle for an uncommon exercise class designed to sculpt their bodies.

They talked, they joked, they laughed and they sweated.

"This is our Chat and Sculpt class," explained Melody Wiliford, a trainer for Lady of America Fitness Centers in Las Vegas. "We sit in a circle and do weight training and we chat."

While they chat about children, husbands and other topics, they use barbells to exercise their arms and shoulders; they do stomach crunches, push-ups and stretching exercises.

"Women like to talk. Here, when they talk, it takes their mind off the pain," Wiliford said. "You would be surprised how many repetitions you can do if you think about something else and talk about something else while you do the exercise."

The Chat and Sculpt technique's purpose is to help women overcome the biggest obstacle to almost every fitness program the fear of failure.

While the women are talking, they are not thinking about failing, noted Wiliford, who has been conducting Chat and Sculpt classes in Las Vegas for about a year. The Lady of America Fitness Center on West Lake Mead Boulevard and Tenaya Way opened earlier this month.

Fear of failure is a double-edged sword when it comes to fitness. It may motivate a person to go to the gym, but it may also motivate a person to quit going.

"Within six months 50 percent (of the people) will drop out of a fitness program," sports psychologist David Conroy said last week during the American College of Sports Medicine's annual Health and Fitness Summit and Exposition held at the Paris Las Vegas. "And those are the ones that get to the gym in the first place. Getting people off the couch and to the gym is perhaps even more difficult."

Failing to have a physique acceptable to one's peers and failing to be healthy are two of the most common reasons a person goes to the gym, according to Conroy, an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Penn State University.

Fear of not being able to accomplish one's goal after starting a program is one of the most common reasons a person drops out or doesn't even begin one.

"People try to not get themselves into situations in which they are going to fail," Conroy explained. "We don't look for situations in which we are not going to be successful. We look for at least a reasonable opportunity to succeed."

Motivation is key

Conroy said that the key to overcoming the fear-of-failure factor is motivation. "Motivation is the most difficult problem that you deal with on a day-to-day basis."

According to a study conducted by the University of Rochester in New York, three psychological needs are the basis for sustained motivation: a need to feel the actions being undertaken are not forced upon the individual but rather are of his or her choosing, the need to feel competent in the activity, and the need to have social connection to others.

"When these three needs are satisfied, activities are more pleasurable and (the individuals) persist at the activities longer," Conroy said.

The challenge of fitness professionals is to motivate an individual so that he or she will overcome the fear of failure enough to start a fitness program, and then to sustain that motivation throughout the program.

The depth of a person's motivation is judged by persistence.

"Can you get somebody to stay motivated, focused on a behavior, for an extended period of time even in the face of obstacles?" he said.

The post-New Year's holiday rush to the gym is evidence of the motivation many people experience at the beginning of each year. But failure to quickly accomplish the goals of being fit and looking good results in high dropout rates.

"Motives (in beginning anything) are important," Conroy said. "When a person's motives are unsatisfied, he tends to drop out of that activity. He tends to look elsewhere for ways to satisfy the motive."

The No. 1 motive for children to participate in physical activity is enjoyment.

"We don't have that for adult exercises," he said. "Typically, adult exercise is not fun."

The motivation to begin a fitness program often is tied into self-image.

"This country is not in a physical-fitness craze right now, it is in a self-image craze," Conroy said. "Physical fitness is a by-product."

Helping to create the self-image, he said, is the media, which constantly bombards people with ideas of what the ideal person should look like -- buffed and sexy.

"People feel like failures when they don't have the six pack (visible stomach muscles), when they don't look buffed and muscular or like a swimsuit cover model for Sports Illustrated," Conroy said.

He called those images unrealistic.

"Very few people, about 2 percent of the population, attain them," he said, "but we admire people who do have the physiques."

Oh, the 'shame'

When an individual fails to reach the goal of the ideal physique, he or she becomes discouraged and feels "shame and embarrassment" over his or her failure.

"Fear of experiencing shame and embarrassment --- this is the classic fear of failure. The harder you try, the dumber you look. You anticipate looking dumb," Conroy said.

And so rather than continuing with a program, the person quits -- or fails to begin.

"Maybe we can't be Superman, but we shouldn't let our preoccupations or concerns about appearance overwhelm us," Conroy said.

Conroy outlined several ways to reduce anxiety and to remain motivated in the gym:

Mason-Wiliford routinely praises the women who participate in her exercise programs at Lady of America. She also accentuates the positive and tries to keep things interesting with such classes as Chat and Sculpt.

"There are a lot of reasons people drop out," she said. "Boredom is one. It is so much easier to do something else.

"On weight machines, people will come in and kill themselves, thinking they are going to get in shape quickly. What they don't realize is it takes time to get in shape. It took a long time to get out of shape.

"Consistency is the key to success," Mason-Wiliford said, "even if you come in and stay only 10 minutes."

Success stories

Darla Boren, one of Mason-Wiliford's students, said she began working out for health reasons at a gym that catered to both men and women, but quit.

"I didn't like it because a lot of the girls there are buffed and in thongs," Boren said. "When I go the the gym I want to work out. I want to sweat with people who don't have a hard body."

Synthia Romanchik, who once belonged to a coed gym in Ohio, said the thing that discouraged her about working out was men hanging around when she was trying to exercise.

"I joined this club because it's just for women," she said. "I don't feel like being at a gym where guys are hanging out to pick you up. The women here really come to sweat."

Self-employed personal trainer Nico Maartins of Las Vegas says keeping the average person motivated enough to continue a fitness program "is an endless battle.

"You've got to convert all that negative energy into positive."

Maartins prefers working with athletes, saying, "They are motivated when they walk into the gym."

Personal trainer Rick Nelson says the best way to keep a person on a fitness program is to get him or her in and out of the gym as quickly as possible.

He helps his clients through 15 or 20 minutes of intense weight training. For him, an hour or two in the gym is overkill and becomes boring.

"If you can take out Mike Tyson in the first round, why would you want to stay in the ring with him for 15?" Nelson said.

He said the short-but-intense method shows relatively fast results, which is a strong motivation to keep coming back to the gym.

"You have to keep the program interesting," Nelson said. "The biggest mistake people make is they have a routine -- they come in on Monday and do legs, Tuesdays back and something else on other days. They write it all down on paper and do the same thing every day."

That, he says, is boring.

"To me a routine is just getting to the gym. People complicate it by adding to that. Make yourself get to the gym, but don't spend a lot of time there. When you stay a couple of hours, it becomes monotonous and boring.

"I don't know what I'm going to do each day until I walk into the gym. But whatever I do, I attack it viciously."

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