ENGL395

Fitness among
UMD students

Julianne Andrade, Omair Khan, Trisha Pilgrim

Team 6
Table of Contents
Challenges and
Opportunities
2

Insight from Empathy Research.

... 3

Analyzing Empathy Research .

.. 6

Generating Ideas.
. 7

Building, Testing, Learning.

.. 9

Conclusions and Recommendations .

12

1
Challenges and Opportunities
There are a lot of components that go into a persons well being. Our team focused on

physical wellness, and what barriers students at UMD have to attaining a healthy physical

lifestyle. UMD offers a plethora of resources to its students to maintain their physical wellness.

Facilities like Eppley Recreation Center, Ritchie Coliseum and the School of Public Health have

gyms, multipurpose rooms, and even swimming pools. A great variety of fitness classes and

intramural sports are offered. This issue is that too many students are not taking full advantage

of them and do not put physical well being as high of a priority as it should be.

Among UMD students interviewed, we found that many students know the benefits of

physical fitness, but many lack the motivation, may not have the time/time management skills to

make it a top priority, or do not have the proper skills or knowledge to work out effectively and

safely. We focused specifically on the motivation aspect and how to get more students involved.

Over the course of the semester, we conducted empathy research with our peers on campus in

order to come up with an idea that gives incentives to those that spend time at UMDs facilities

in hopes of providing more reasons to go to the gym. With the implementation of this idea,

students could be making physical fitness more of a priority while reaping all of the benefits.

2
Insight from Empathy Research
The first part of our research was identifying our users. Potential users are really any

students at UMD, but especially UMD freshman who are making the transition into college and

need to know the importance of keeping physical fitness as a top priority. We talked to a variety

of students on campus to try and get a better understanding of their habits or lack thereof. We

would begin with questions like, how often do you make it to the gym and what kind of

physical activity do you do. From there we could gauge the activity level of each interviewee

and ask questions like what prevents you from going to the gym and what would be your

fitness goals. We found that many students did not have physical activity set into their daily or

weekly schedule, however many expressed their desire to do so. A main reason people want to

work is for the reward in appearance, whether it be losing weight or gaining muscle. Perhaps

this desire was enough to get them to the gym every once in awhile, but not enough to keep as

a priority in their weekly schedules. Dr. Sherry Pagoto believes our desire to avoid any

experience of discomfort is the real reason people do not work out. She illustrates in her article

that challenging discomfort, fully experiencing it, and pushing through it can cause the

discomfort to dissipate entirely over time (Pagoto). Many students expressed that they know

they dont go as much as they know they should. There was a big disconnect between what the

students thought and wanted compared to what they were actually doing.

Because of this huge disconnect between students wanting to work out but not actually

making a big enough effort to get there, we focused on the barriers that were keeping them from

making working out a routine. The three common trends were the lack of motivation, lack of

time, or lack of knowledge on how to get started or what they should be doing. For many

students with busy and stressful schedules, working out just does not seem as important as

having a job, being part of clubs and getting good grades in school. College can be a place with

so much to do and so little time to do it. Many students feel constantly stressed and simply do

3
not feel as though they have the time to fit anything else into their schedules. Craig Jarrow,

author of Time Management Ninja, provides a list of reasons that show the busiest people that

they can make the time to work out. He suggests waking up early before responsibilities to work

out, which will increase productivity for the day, another concern for stressed out students. He

also suggests a short workout at home if they dont have the time that day to go to a gym. Any

amount of consistent activity is enough to start getting physical fitness into a schedule. For

many students, it comes down to improving time management skills to achieving all that they

want to do in an effective and less overwhelming manner.

The lack of motivation arises, for some, from the idea that getting out of bed is just not

worth an hour at the gym. For those who know the benefits but cant see them immediately after

working out, it can be a big discomfort. One interview subject explained that the long term

benefits just do not seem tangible and going to the gym is not an enjoyable experience. She

emphasized that she knew the positive effects it would have on her body, but at the moment it

was more appealing to watch netflix after class or hang out in her room with friends. As

mentioned above, Dr. Pagoto believes that people do not work out because they do not want to

feel uncomfortable. Improving motivation would not only help students in their physical wellness,

but mental and emotional as well. We focused on this particular aspect as we continued our

research and developed our ideas.

The final trend we saw was that many students, having the motivation and the time, just

do not know what to do when they step foot in the gym. Some students felt intimidated by

people who know what theyre doing using big weights or complicated workout routines. If

someone came into college without prior knowledge or experience in fitness, they might fear

going to the gym and not knowing how to use equipment or not knowing how to plan their

workout so that theyre actually doing something effective. One interviewee said she wished she

had a gym buddy so she could feel more comfortable.

4
 We gained a lot of insight and took a lot of notes from the interviews we conducted. We

categorized our main quotes into 4 categories: think, feel, say, and do. In order words, how do

students thoughts, feelings, words, and actions compare? Many feelings were expressed in the

interview; stress, discomfort, intimidation, nerves. These feelings are not the most positive when

it came to discussing working out. These vary a little bit from what they think. They think they

know the resources UMD has to offer. They think about the benefits and they think about how

they would look in the mirror if they did work out. Their actions differ from both what they think

and feel in that they will complete other things on or off their schedule before they make it to the

gym. When they do make it to the gym, it is not consistent nor is it effective. And finally, they are

saying what they wish they could do if they had either the motivation, time, or knowledge.

5
Analyzing Empathy Research

Our empathy research led us to conclude that most of the reasons students have to

keep them from working out fell under three categories: not having enough motivation, not

having enough time, or not understanding completely how to work out. Often times it was a

combination of the three. However, upon discussing and further analyzing our research, we

realized that of the three reasons, one somewhat overarched the others. The roots of the issue

laid in the lack of incentive to workout. If students had the incentive and were motivated to

enough to exercise, they would find the time to work out by building it into their schedules; they

would put the effort into learning how to exercise. Our research also indicated that most

students are aware of the reasons one should work out. But knowledge doesnt always lead to

action.

Learning that most students already understand the benefits of exercise, we realized

that a solution to help increase the amount people exercised inherently needed to involve some

sort of motivation. Our research showed us that the barriers keeping many students from

staying fit didnt lie in lack of opportunity or ease, but rather stemmed from within. Students

needed a way to overcome the desire to, say, watch netflix in bed all evening, and find the drive

to exercise. Many of our research subjects that expressed the ease with which it was to just not

work out needed a way to be pushed over the edge, an answer to provide the activation energy

to head to the gym. Thus our viewpoint changed from trying to find an all encompassing solution

that would address all the issues keeping students from exercising, to trying to find a way to

provide incentive and motivate students to exercise; this would hopefully trickle down and

resolve all other issues as well.

Generating Ideas

6
 Once we understood how we were going to approach the problem, we needed to come

up with ideas regarding how we might motivate students towards fitness. We brainstormed a

wide range of ideas to provide incentive, including maybe providing extra credit, or maybe

having student athletes lead group classes. Other ideas can be found in the figure below.

Questions we asked to help generate ideas include:

How might we help students with time

management/stress management so they

can make the time to go to the gym?

How might we have more

experienced gym goers motivate less

experienced gym goers?

How might we give incentives to

those that prioritize their physical fitness?

How might we get students to know

more about their free/discounted resources?

While some of these solutions were

extravagant and werent completely feasible, others

offered mediocre amounts of incentive at best. What

we lacked was a solution that would provide

motivation for all, systematically and efficiently. We

had to dig deeper, and asked ourselves: what

motivates us to do anything? What pushes us to

exercise? For some of us, the reward of having a

healthy, good-looking body was enough to regularly

work out. But we realized that for people on the fence, perhaps that wasnt reward enough.

7
Perhaps we needed to provide a bigger reward, one that rewarded people things of their own

choosing.

That was our breakthrough. We combined the ideas of free food, free Under Armour

gear, and coupons to something bigger. Taking a leaf out of Pavlovs book, we hypothesized a

rewards system, one that would track the hours spent exercising and would provide rewards

after reaching adequate numbers of hours. The rewards would be of the persons own choosing

out of a variety of options, customizing the experience. Other universities have already

implemented such a system, including Augustana University, which provides prizes to students

who exercise a certain number of times in a given time period1.

We decided to do some side research to see if rewarding our clients would be more

effective versus potentially punishing them for not working out. A, perhaps extreme, example of

punishment might be a system that deducts points from students classes if they dont exercise

for an extended period of time. However, we personally believe such a system would be

counterproductive and would discourage students from enrolling in such a system. It might also

generate a negative perception in students minds about exercise. We want to create a system

that would encourage working out in a positive light. This notion that rewards are more effective

than punishments is supported by Dr. Paul with Everett Clinic, who states that children respond

best to positive reinforcement than being reprimanded for doing something wrong.6

It was thus decided upon: we would develop a rewards program. All that needed to be

done, then, was hashing out the details and prototyping our idea.

Building, Testing, Learning

With much deliberation and thought, our team decided that the most feasible and

beneficial solution would be to create a rewards program for UMD students. You are probably

8
wondering why we decided to do reward rather than punishment. Since we are already

students, we figured punishment might be too severe and taxing on the already stressed out

college student. Many students complain about general education requirements, so if we were

to implement activity courses as general education requirement for all majors, students would

most likely feel like it is unnecessary and complain, which we want to avoid. The point of this

program is not to scare students into being healthy; we want students to feel motivated, not

forced or guilted into working out on a regular and consistent basis. We want students to enjoy

working out and appreciate the intrinsic benefits like being healthier, feeling better, and

improving their memory. In our research we discovered that punishment or consequences tend

to force people to do the desired result more often than rewards, but rewards lead to more

lasting results or rather greater retention of motor skill learning (Kageyama). In this study they

had about 40 participants play a game similar to Fruit Ninja and recorded which group would

play the game more effectively. The group who received negative points when they messed up

initially had better scores, but after multiple trials, the group that was positively rewarded

performed better overall with more lasting skills (Kageyama). We want students to continue

working out and make this part of their lives even after college. Having this as a general

education requirement would not make it a lasting and worthwhile habit for the majority of

students, thus making the rewards program a better solution in short term and long term.

This rewards program would encourage students to go to the gym and exercise so that

they can earn free gear like wristbands, smoothies, shirts, backpacks, and even bike credits

through BikeUMD. This rewards program focuses on UMD undergraduate students of all

classifications, but it is also applicable to graduate students, faculty, and staff. The rewards

program can motivate not only the student but the whole campus body to become more

involved physically. The rewards program is very easy to be a part of. Since swipe access is

already required in the gym, we would use that login within the computer to track a students

9
hours in the gym. Now, we did think of students possibly going into the gym and sitting around

and not working out just to rack up hours, however the weight/fit staff at Eppley as well as

supervisors would ensure that patrons are on the move and not lounging around to reap the

benefits of our app.

To test it out, we asked a couple patrons how many hours on average they spent in the

gym to give us an idea of how to work out points and rewards. The average amount from the

sample of students we surveyed said they worked out for 3-5 hours a week. So then, we

decided that one hour would be equal to one point. The first reward in the program would be

worth 10 points and it would be a wristband. The second rewards would be worth 25 and it

would be a water bottle from RecWell. The greater the points, the greater or more desirable the

prize. Although we did not hand out any actual prizes for the prototype, we were able to role

play and receive feedback from patrons at Eppley about what prizes they would enjoy. A popular

item was free smoothies. Patrons also enjoyed the idea of credits towards BikeUMD so they

could rent a bike on campus. These two items would be worth more in terms of points. We were

curious to know if the prizes we had in mind would be worthwhile to other students, but they

found them to be good prizes across the board.

Specifically when prototyping Tolu and Esther in the gym, who are both freshmen, they

said that the rewards program would motivate them to do more in the gym. They were excited

by the prizes we mentioned for the amount of hours they would have to do. They especially

liked the smoothie reward since the gym bar smoothies tend to be on the more expensive side.

On the downside, they did say that they felt the gym might be even more crowded and that

would be frustrating for those that truly want to work out and maintain their physical fitness.

Eppley is already very packed so it would be difficult if more students in addition to those who

are working out without a rewards program in place. So with that being said, we came up with

the idea of adding more points for those who go to the gym during unpopular times like in the

10
early morning. There is also the option for students to exercise outside of Eppley right on the

field where many intramural teams actually practice or they could play basketball at the courts

right next to Eppley. There are other resources than working out inside that students could take

advantage of to gain reward points! The process for working outdoors would be similar to the

indoor process. We would just ask that those working outdoors would check in at the front desk

and give a brief description of what exercises or activities they plan on completing and when the

finish come back to the front desk in Eppley to check out. Also the rewards program would be

accessible to all campus gyms. Ritchie Coliseum, SPH, and Cole Field House would be viable

options for working out as well to help reduce gym traffic. This would make it easier for students

to get to a gym closer to them during the times that fit their schedules

and not have to be waiting for equipment or machines for a long

while.

This rewards system would be accessible to students through

an Application that can be downloaded onto their phones. This

application would would have the options to check the amount of

points, check what rewards are available for what points, and see

their logged activity. This is a way for students to keep track and see

what shorter term rewards they can after accumulating hours of

exercise weekly. Students could swipe in/out at UMD facilities that

will log hours. It will also log hours for intramural sports since not all

students work out in the same way. A concern, however, was brought

up by an interviewee as to other forms of exercise that dont include

going to the gym, such as jogging outside. The last adjustment we

made was a Step Goal which counts the amount of daily steps and rewards students for

exceeding a step count of 10,000 steps, which is a little under 5 miles. For students than run

11
outside or are busy walking around campus, this step count is a way to reward them for being fit

although they did not make it to the gym that day.

Overall then, the most important aspects to work on with our rewards program is to

make sure that the prizes are weighted at an appropriate and reasonable point value. We also

want to make sure the prizes are worthwhile so they motivate the students. Some students are

motivated by free food others by free gear. Some students do not really care about prizes and

are more motivated by getting to socialize or spend time with their friends. This reward program

would encourage some students to get in the gym and hopefully bring those who are rather

unaffected by prizes since they can go with their friends, who are motivated by prizes. A few

students felt like they would not really care about the rewards especially as the semester picked

up and work piled on. Although it is hard to balance, we hope that the rewards program can

entice students to work out before work gets hectic and once they notice the intrinsic benefits of

exercising, they are prompted to continue working out even if they are investing less time as the

semester progresses. Moreover, we have to make sure the gyms on campus would all be able

to accommodate the rewards program so that if our solution is extremely successful we do not

have overcrowding in the gyms, which would frustrate patrons. We do not want the gyms to be

overcrowded because these students who are already busy, overworked, sleep deprived, and

struggling to manage their time will be struggling with the gym getting in their way and holding

them back. There is an online widget that allows students to see how busy the gym is at Eppley,

but it is not updated regularly. So in addition to the rewards program, we would most likely try to

update that widget more frequently to help patrons figure out if they want to visit the gym at

certain times. Finally, we want the application and rewards program to be accessible to all

students and all forms of physical fitness.

12
Conclusions and Recommendations
The main issues that UMD students face as they try to get engaged in the gym is the

fact that they do not feel motivated because other commitments are more rewarding in their

minds. The short term benefit of socializing or even getting homework done is more apparent

than going to the gym. However, with this rewards program in place students can track their

progress and be rewarded along the way for their activity. This would change the way students

on and off campus use the gyms. Students would feel more motivated to go because of the goal

of free gear to look forward to.

Being that Trisha works at Eppley it was easy for us to do our prototype testing and

empathy research. We found it easy to navigate through solutions and ideas since we had such

a convenient and relevant pool of subjects to ask for feedback. Since we are also students with

similar goals of wanting to be physically active, we were able to think of what we would want or

what our friends would want and implement those ideas into the project as well as the ideas and

concerns of the patrons we surveyed.

This rewards program would definitely have a major impact on the campus student body

in terms of physical fitness and activity. UMD students love free anything and will line up and

participate in activities in order to obtain them. The same is true when it comes to our rewards

program, which is why we are sure it would increase physical activity in UMD students.

Hopefully, this rewards program can expand on campus and eventually involve nearby or local

gyms for those who prefer to workout off campus. It could also partner with fitness applications

and track patrons runs, bike trails, hikes, and many other workouts. These could all come into

play and help add points so that students can earn rewards. It would also create a buddy

system which again motivates students to work out more.

13
 To properly implement such a system, we would need to coordinate with the Eppley staff

for training, Under Armour for endorsements, and the university administration for approvals and

help with development of the app. Given the benefits and relative simplicity of our idea, we

believe that approval would not be too difficult to receive.

Theoretically, this idea should work well in motivating students to exercise more. This is

backed by support from the users in our prototyping; most students loved the idea of being

rewarded for exercising. To see if this solution is truly effective, however, we would need to

closely monitor students exercise patterns before and after the implementation of the system. If

students did indeed exercise more due to the rewards and took advantage of the buddy system

provided in the app, we would be able to tell that the system is actually effective. The level of

effectiveness could be determined by statistical analysis of frequency of gym visits, as well as

monitoring students progressions towards their goals (ie. weight loss) before and after the app.

We would also want extensive feedback from users in order to improve and manage the app to

make it the most effective.Feedback would include suggestions from students as well as from

perhaps Under Armour or the Eppley staff in regards to how to best assign point prices for

rewards. All in all, we believe that the system, if implemented, would be very successful and

with feedback and improvements, could become a prime motivator for UMD students to

exercise more.

14
References
1.) http://www.augie.edu/fitness-incentive-programs
2.) http://recwell.umd.edu/
3.) https://www.loyaltygator.com/myprogram
4.) Pagoto, Sherry, Ph.D. "The Real Reason We Don't Exercise." Psychology Today.

Psychology Today, 10 Nov. 2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

5.) Jarrow, Craig. "10 Reasons Why You DO Have Time To Workout." Time

Management Ninja. N.p., 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2017.

6.) Kageyama, Noa, Phd. "Reward vs. Punishment - Which Results in Better Learning?"

The Bulletproof Musician. The Bulletproof Musician, 24 July 2016. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.

<http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/reward-vs-punishment-which-results-in-better-

learning/>.
7.) Schoenfeld, Paul. "Effective Discipline: Reward vs. Punishment." Effective Discipline:

Reward vs. Punishment | The Everett Clinic. Everett Clinic, 22 Jan. 2015. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.

15