Group Exercise Instructors Make an Impact
Leadership style that builds community can boost attendance.
Group exercise instructors, take heart: Your leadership skills significantly influence participants’ attendance and effort. Australian researchers conducted a study to examine how an instructor’s ability to create a sense of community and group identity among class members affected both effort and attendance. The study examined 249 participants and instructors across a variety of group formats.
Data analysis showed that members’ feelings of group identification and comfort in a class were clearly linked with more frequent attendance and greater effort. In fact, these feelings mattered more than participants’ perceptions of their own competence. This indicates that group exercise instructors can boost activity levels by fostering positive group environments.
The study is in Psychology of Sport & Exercise (2019; doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2019.101544).
Shirley Eichenberger-Archer, JD, MA
Shirley Eichenberger-Archer, JD, MA, is an internationally acknowledged integrative health and mindfulness specialist, best-selling author of 16 fitness and wellness books translated into multiple languages and sold worldwide, award-winning health journalist, contributing editor to Fitness Journal, media spokesperson, and IDEA's 2008 Fitness Instructor of the Year. She's a 25-year industry veteran and former health and fitness educator at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who has served on multiple industry committees and co-authored trade books and manuals for ACE, ACSM and YMCA of the USA. She has appeared on TV worldwide and was a featured trainer on America's Next Top Model.
