I can't stop: The relationship among exercise dependence symptoms, injury and illness behaviors, and motives for exercise continuance

Exercise dependence is associated with negative health outcomes such as injury and illness. The research, however, examining primary exercise dependence and injury/illness is scant. This study's objective was to examine the relationship among exercise behavior, injury/illness, and motives for exercise continuance for 332 male and female university non-athletes with high, middle, or low exercise dependence symptoms. The participants completed measures of exercise behavior, drive for thinness, exercise dependence symptoms, injury/illness, and motives for exercise continuance. We found that (a) the high exercise dependence group reported more total exercise behavior, injury/illness, and continuance motives than the middle and low groups; and (b) the middle exercise dependence group reported more total exercise behavior, injury/illness, and continuance motives than the low group. The most salient reasons found for continuing to exercise despite injury/illness were because the injury was perceived to be minor (i.e. low and middle exercise dependence groups) and because exercise is important (i.e. high exercise dependence group). Exercise dependence symptoms were associated with an increased risk of injury/illness. Future research is needed examining the relationship among exercise dependence symptoms, injury/illness, and other indices (e.g. severity, injury duration) before effective programs can be designed and implemented to treat exercise dependence symptoms.