Overview

• An eight-week trial with 132 adults, published July 7 in Frontiers in Psychology, found that personality traits shape individuals’ enjoyment, workout choices and fitness outcomes.
• Extraversion and conscientiousness correlated with higher baseline fitness, while participants high in neuroticism showed poorer heart rate recovery.
• Extroverted participants favored high-intensity, social workouts like HIIT and VO₂ max cycling, whereas those scoring high in neuroticism preferred low-intensity, private home exercises and tracked their heart rate less.
• Only individuals with high neuroticism experienced a significant reduction in stress following the exercise intervention.
• Study authors and fitness professionals are debating how to develop practical, scalable guidelines for personality-based exercise programs and are calling for further research.