The Road to Exercise Is Filled With Good Intentions: Why Don't My Proximal Exercise Intentions Match My Actions?

Difficulty in following through with proximal exercise intentions (PIs) may be associated with experiencing frequent, limiting perceived reasons (factors causing indecision) and low self‐regulatory efficacy (SRE) to cope. Differences in reason frequency, limitation, and SRE between adults whose PI frequency matched their exercise frequency and adults whose PI frequency was higher than their actual frequency ( mismatched ) were examined. Participants ( N = 163) completed Web‐based measures of reason frequency, limitation, coping strategies and related SRE, intention, and exercise for the prior 4 weeks. A multivariate analysis of variance comparing matched ( n = 89) with mismatched ( n = 74) groups was significant. Matched participants reported significantly lower reason limitation and higher SRE, suggesting that they may have the SRE to buffer negative effects of limiting reasons.