Determination of recreational exercise participation motives of individuals using private health and fitness centers

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors which motivate individuals to the recreational exercises. Along with determining these factors, it is also investigated that whether these factors are changing with the effect of some demographic variables. 302 male (55.1%) and 246 female (44.9%) with a total of 548 people who are making recreational exercises, in 9 health and fitness centers, in Ankara, participated voluntarily to this study. ?Recreational Exercise Motivation Measure? was used as means of data collection instrument. It consists of 66 items questioning the reasons of individuals to perform recreational exercise and contains 5 subscales; namely (1) health, (2) competition, (3) body shape/appearance, (4) social/enjoyment, (5) skill development. Participants were asked to rate each item on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). For testing the reliability of the instrument Cronbach Alpha internal consistency value was calculated. For subscales the internal consistency value were ranged from 0.83 (skill development) to 0.91 (health) where the total internal consistency is 0.90. Independent Samples t-test was used to examine the mean differences with regard to gender and marital status considering 5 subscales. The results of independent samples t-test indicated that, there was a significant mean difference between males and females in ?health? and ?competition? subscales. Also, there was a significant mean difference in 4 subscales except ?health? with the effect of ?marital status?. Results of the ANOVA analyses demonstrated that statistically mean differences was found with regard to age (competition, body shape/appearance), profession (health), education (health), membership duration (social/enjoyment), weekly participation frequency (health), status of utilization of leisure times (body shape/appearance, skill development) and partners (body shape/appearance and skill development). As a result of this study, ?health?, ?skill development? and ?body shape/appearance? are found to be the top three factors which motivate individuals to participate recreational exercise. Key Words: Recreation, motivation, exercise, participation, health and fitness centers.