UNIT3_04 Intervention Testing Reflection (21- 26July 2026)

Rethinking Psychological Barriers for First-Time Gym Users

Before this intervention test, I had always focused my research on a relatively clear question: How to reduce the psychological stress that beginners experience when entering the gym? I think that people who enter the gym for the first time may feel anxious and insecure due to the unfamiliar environment, fitness equipment, body shape differences and concerns about others’ evaluations. Therefore, my initial intervention direction was to help first-time gym visitors build a sense of security and confidence through more friendly guidance, simple fitness experiences, and emotional feedback. Without a complete train of thought, I conducted several small-scale intervention tests, including personally experiencing the beginner’s classes at the gym and inviting participants without fitness experience to have their first gym experience. During the testing process, I observed their reactions when they entered the gym, touched the equipment and interacted with the coach, and at the same time, I understood their psychological changes before and after the experience through simple emotional feedback.

However, during a conversation with the gym staff, I gained a perspective that made me rethink the entire project. When I asked her, “Do you think beginners who just enter the gym will feel shy or have a psychological burden?”

She replied:

Only those who have mentally prepared themselves can enter the gym. The moment they come in, it actually indicates that they can bear it psychologically. As for the inability to adapt and whether one cares about others’ opinions, these will exist at the beginning, but after some time, these things will gradually disappear.

This sentence had a great impact on me. From the perspective of gym staff, “entering the gym” itself is a psychological leap that has already been completed. What she saw were people who had already entered the space, while I had been more concerned about why they were afraid to enter and how to reduce this fear before. This made me realize that my previous understanding of “psychological disorders” might have been too simplistic. I misunderstood psychological stress as a problem that needs to be eliminated, but in fact, people who enter the gym for the first time may not do so only after they are completely free of psychological stress. On the contrary, they might have mustered up the courage to enter the gym while there was still uncertainty, shyness and worry.

This made me rethink what problems my intervention should solve. I no longer think that my project should simply “relieve the psychological pressure of beginners”. Because a certain degree of tension and uncertainty may be a normal experience when entering any unfamiliar environment for the first time, and this kind of pressure does not necessarily prevent a person from eventually entering the gym. In contrast, I think a more important question might be: Once a beginner has mustered up the courage to enter the gym, what can we do to make it easier for them to adapt to this unfamiliar environment?

Berger & Calabrese (1975) proposed that uncertainty is particularly evident when people interact with strangers for the first time. People will enhance their predictability of the environment and the behavior of others by obtaining information, observing and interacting. In my experience design, I arranged for the coach to have a brief exchange and warm-up, and then gradually introduce the fitness equipment and different training areas. At first, I understood these steps as methods to “reduce anxiety”. But now it seems that their more important role might be to reduce uncertainty.

When a novice doesn’t know what he should do, he may feel nervous. When someone tells him what the next step is, how to use the equipment and where to train, the unfamiliar environment begins to become predictable. As this sense of familiarity increases, the original psychological pressure may naturally decrease. Therefore, this test made me realize that my intervention doesn’t necessarily have to tell the participants “Don’t be afraid”, but should provide them with sufficient support so that they can still continue to experience when they are afraid.

This brought about a significant shift in my design direction: From “reducing anxiety” to “supporting adaptation”.

That is to say, I no longer only focus on how to make people who enter the gym for the first time “not feel nervous”, but start to pay attention to how to help them move from being strangers to becoming familiar, from being uncertain to having a sense of control, and gradually from being an external observer to a participant in the gym community. Ryan & Deci’s (2000) Self-Determination Theory (SDT) holds that people’s sustained motivation is related to three fundamental psychological needs:

Autonomy – I can make my own decisions

Competence – I believe I have the ability to do it

Relatedness – I feel that I belong here and have a connection with others

Meanwhile, this test also enabled me to discover a limitation in the research. Gym staff believe that the discomfort and concern for others’ gazes of beginners will naturally disappear over time, but this does not mean that everyone will go through the same process. Some people may still feel very uncomfortable after their first entry and even choose not to come back because of a negative experience. Therefore, I cannot merely judge that psychological pressure will naturally disappear based on the experience of the staff, but need to further verify it through the feedback of the participants themselves.

This also reminds me that in subsequent research, I need to pay attention to both “people who enter the gym” and “those who eventually do not come back”. There may be different psychological experiences between them, and this could be the key to understanding long-term engagement and sustained motivation.

Overall, the greatest value of this intervention test is not to prove whether my original intervention was effective or ineffective, but to enable me to discover a new research perspective.