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Incorporating A Sense Of Community In A Group Exercise Intervention Facilitates Adherence, Katie M. Heinrich, Brady K. Kurtz, Meg Patterson, Derek A. Crawford, Adam Barry

Health Behavior Research

Participant attrition is detrimental for exercise intervention studies, particularly if dropout is not random. Community engagement has helped facilitate participant adherence, which is particularly applicable for group exercise programs. Developing a sense of community (SOC) helps participants feel that they belong and provides ongoing social support. This paper reports on strategies used during an 11-week high intensity functional training (HIFT) intervention with exceptionally high adherence (96.7%) that involved 30 participants (57% women, age 36.7 ± 4.5 years). Participants recorded their heart rate variability using a smartphone app daily throughout the study, completed three different weeks of fitness assessments, and attended …