Type your single-spaced responses (11 point font) to the following questions in the space provided. Do not exceed the space provided. Handwritten responses will not be accepted. Your final worksheet should not exceed 3 pages.
Evaluate your physical activity over the two week period. In your response, include the trends that you notice, whether you meet the PA recommendations (PA Guidelines, 10,000 steps, and fitness recommendations). Were these two weeks typical for you? What influenced how satisfied you were with your PA over the two week period?
Tracking my physical activity over this two week period surprised me with how much I learned as well as never played close attention to. One trend I noticed how much more difficult it was to keep up a good amount of daily physical activity when nearing the end of the week. On both weekends my step count, non-exercise physical activity, and exercise physical activity all decreased. Another thing I noticed, mostly because I was actually tracking the exact number was how low my totals were for amount of steps taken throughout the day. My exercise physical activity stayed consistent in both of the weeks but my non-exercise physical activity was kind of all over the board. Focusing on increasing the amount of my daily non-exercise physical activity is something that I believe I really need to focus on. In both weeks I met the PA Guidelines but did not meet the 10,000 steps guideline. I think it is somewhat difficult to reach 10,000 steps every day but I know I have a lot of areas where I can improve to help make that number achievable. Overall, I think these two weeks were pretty typical for me. My exercise physical activity doesn’t every change much and my non-exercise physical activity usually seems to be different from day to day. My satisfaction level didn’t reach above a score of 3 in the first week and finally began to rise once I had goals created that I could reach to achieve from day to day. Also, my motivation level for each specific day definitely played a big role in the overall satisfaction that I felt of how my physical activity went once the day came to an end.
Describe the top 3 facilitators and barriers over the two week period. Were the influences primarily predisposing, enabling or reinforcing? Explain.
` The first top facilitator was access. Whether non-exercise or exercise, being able to engage in whatever type of physical activity I was doing always seemed to be easily available. The second top facilitator was probably support. Whether from friends or family, I always had someone there to push me in the right direction and a lot of the time even join me in the different activities that I was participating in. The third top facilitator was the special feeling you get after a hard days of work. The more physical activity done throughout the day may have made me more tired, but how I felt mentally and emotionally far outweighed that feeling. Overall I feel the influences that acted as the top facilitators for me fall into the reinforcing factor category. With help, support, and positive feelings, physical activity seemed to more enjoyable and I did more of it.
The first top barrier was motivation. Although I don’t like to admit it, actually picking yourself up and getting out there to get things accomplished always seemed to be floating around in my mind. The second top barrier was school related. From going to class to studying at home or the library, schoolwork was always something that I had to try and get done which a lot of the time lead to sedentary behaviors such as sitting or lounging on my bed. The third top barrier was enjoyment. This barrier affected my non-exercise physical activity much more than exercise physical activity. I enjoy going to the gym to work out most of the time but deciding to walk or take the bus to class was a much more difficult decision to choose the option leading to more physical movement of my body. Overall, the barriers seemed to have a lot to do with actually making the decision to engage in a particular behavior, which falls into the predisposing factor category.
Evaluate the process. Describe the process of monitoring your PA over the two week period. How did this project influence your physical activity participation?
This two week process was new to me considering I have never tracked my total physical activity over a decently long period of time. It actually ended up being much more difficult than I initially anticipated to make sure and remember to record what was required at the end of the day. I ended up forgetting to do this a couple of the days solely because it was a new experience that I was not used to doing. Deciding whether tasks I was participating in were actually able to be considered physical activity was another thing that I found to be a little difficult. For example, I have never thought as showering and making breakfast after waking up in the morning was ever physical activity but it definitely is at least a low level of non-exercise physical activity. My exercise physical activity was very similar in both weeks and has been for a pretty long time. Because of this, tracking that aspect along the two weeks was probably the easiest thing for me. My satisfaction level was another pretty easy category to judge because you can literally feel whether or not you believe the day went well in regards to physical activity. The part of the process that I felt actually ended up being the most difficult was deciding on what the facilitators and barriers were to the total amount of physical activity accomplished. There were a few that were pretty obvious like motivation, but there were also some of the days that I really had to think in order to come up with what helped or with what stopped me from achieving the top level of physical activity that I could.
Describe goals. What was your PA & exercise goal? Did you achieve your goals? In retrospect, did you set SMART goals? Was this a good activity for your current stage of readiness (what is your stage?) Describe. Create one stage-specific SMART goal for you for the next two weeks and a plan outlining how you will achieve this goal.
My physical activity goal was to increase my step amount by 500 or more for every individual day of the second week compared to the first. For the majority of the days I did reach this goal but for a few of the days I fell short. Although I didn’t reach my specific goal, my average steps per day increased by a lot from week one to week two. My exercise goal was to replace ten minutes of my workout program where I usually would have been lifting weights with ten minutes of some type of cardio. I did reach this goal and liked the change I made to my daily workout routine. I think both of my goals don’t meet all of the criteria needed to be considered SMART goals. Specificity was one of the areas that I feel they may have fell short in fully covering. Although I explained what I was going to try and achieve, I didn’t lay out the exact plan or method that I could follow to fully reach that goal. Besides not reaching the specific aspect, my goals were definitely measurable, attainable and realistic. I think this was a good idea for my current stage of readiness, which I believe is the maintenance stage. I have consistently been physically active for a long time and feel like maintain this level is truly a part of who I am now. A goal that I would like to try out would be to participate in at least 3 different exercise methods per week to increase enjoyment and make it easier to stick to in the long run. My plan for this would be to think about and record a list of 10 various exercise options that I know that I would like and plan out two weeks that each contain at least three of the different options that I came up with. They would need to be attainable and realistic so I would pick activities offered by the REC building that I was sure I could gain access to.
Create a graph that illustrates your physical activity over the two week period (you can graph any information that is relevant to you). Copy and paste the graph below. Make sure your graph is easy to read and all variables are properly labeled. Include a few sentences to explain the graph and the significance of the data you selected.
This graph depicts a comparison of the steps per day taken from Monday through Sunday. Its significance is that it shows parts of the week that or higher or lower than others as well as how the values shown by the Week 2 line have increased following the implementation of a goal to work towards.
Describe the one thing that you learned about your physical activity as a result of this assignment.
I briefly mentioned this idea earlier but the main or most important thing I learned from this assignment was the importance of non-exercise physical activity. It is sometimes hard to think about or create ways in which you can increase the amount of this type of physical activity but in doing so will produce huge improvements in many different aspects of your life. A few examples would be your health, success, and self-motivation. Non-exercise physical activity can come in many different shapes and forms and focusing on paying attention to how to increase these various activities is the first step to actually doing it. A focus on enjoyable tasks is a very easy way to ensure that the increasers in your non-exercise physical activity are sure to emerge in your day to day life. I agree with the idea that there should be a larger focus on non-exercise physical activity rather than exercise physical activity as a way to get people up and moving and to improve the overall health of all individuals around the world
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