Motivation des seniors à l'activité physique .mp4

Who said that age was a limit to physical activity? Motivation ‘is what drives us to act’.

According to the theory of self-determination, there are 3 types of motivation: intrinsic
(pleasure), extrinsic (obligation/social recognition) and amotivation (absence of
motivation). So the more self-motivated you are, the more you will keep going your
activity.

We can also find the continuum of self-determinations. It shows the different forms of
extrinsic motivation, which can be integrated, identified, injected or external. Depending
on where the senior is located on this continuum, he will be more or less motivated to
practise over the long term.

Two studies have analysed the motivation of older people. One by Stephan and
colleagues in 2010 in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly, which studied 574
women aged between 60 and 88 involved in a physical activity programme. They
classified them into 3 motivational profiles mentioned earlier (intrinsic, extrinsic, a
motivation) . The second study has been published in 2018 in the journal gérontologie et
société and involved 188 senior aged between 60 and 90 who used a questionnaire to
assess their level of self-determination.

The results show that the older we get, the more we practise sport for pleasure and less
for social recognition or health. This confirms the theory of self-determination: intrinsic
motivations encourage greater adherence. Moreover, those who practise sport because
they have to, are the ones who stop sport most often.

Thus it is important to combine enjoyment with personal objectives in order to stay
active for a long time, and being able to offer both enjoyable and fun activities to senior
citizens.