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According to a large new study, the secret sauce for sticking to your workout routine consists of just a few key elements.


More than 60,000 gym-goers in the United States took part in different four-week programs designed by 30 scientists from 15 different universities in the United States. The goal is to get people who are already gym members to go on a regular basis.


Text messages, emails, e-gift cards, and websites were used in the behavioral intervention programs, which ran from March 2018 to January 2019. Each had at least 455 people in it.


The features prompted users to make workout plans, including the dates and times they would exercise. An automated system sent text message reminders before those times, and an incentive program awarded points for each workout that could be redeemed for small cash rewards. The findings were published in Nature on Wednesday.


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These factors boost motivation, reduce forgetting, and help people plan ahead of time to avoid obstacles, so we addressed the easy-to-overcome barriers to follow-through," said the study's lead author, Katy Milkman, the James G. Dinan professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Milkman was surprised by how difficult it was for the teams to create interventions that were more effective than the "plan, remind, reward" model.

"The best programs tapped into all of these, plus something else," she explained.

One challenge became clear: it can be easier to form an exercise habit than it is to maintain it.

45% of the interventions significantly increased weekly gym visits during the four weeks, but only 8% resulted in long-term behavioral changes that were measurable after the intervention period ended.

"The first step is to get people to exercise more, and this study shows that it is doable." "said Margie Lachman, director of Brandeis University's Boston Roybal Center for Active Lifestyle Interventions, who was not involved in the study. "The real challenge, however, is getting people to stick with it."

The most effective intervention offered small incentives for returning to the gym after missing workouts. The most successful program paid people 22 cents per gym visit. If they missed one day, they received an additional 9 cents for their next visit, as long as they missed only one.

"Everyone complains about not breaking the streak, but it's unavoidable. "We discovered that if you break it more than once, it's much more difficult to get back on track than if you only miss one day," Milkman explained.