Want better workout results? Match your exercise to your personality, study suggests

If your exercise routine has hit a summer slump, it may be because your workouts aren’t suited to your personality, new research suggests

If your exercise routine has hit a summer slump, it may be because your workouts aren’t suited to your personality, new research suggests.

Personality traits can influence which physical activities people enjoy, as well as how often and how much benefit they get from exercise, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

About 31% of adults fall short of the recommended 150 minutes of moderately intense physical activity per week, highlighting the need for tailored exercise programs to get people motivated, scientists at University College London said.

“Understanding personality factors in designing and recommending physical activity programs is likely to be very important in determining how successful a program is, and whether people will stick with it and become fitter,” senior author Paul Burgess, a professor at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said in a news release.

The researchers recruited 132 adults, who underwent baseline fitness testing before they were split into two groups.