Psyching-Up: Temperament and Personality

One of my favorite things to do in the local big box style gyms is to people watch.  Sometimes my watching serves a purpose.  For example, I might watch someone perform a movement or exercise and use it as something of an informal case study, completing mental repetitions in screening and cuing techniques.  In other cases, I might just be interested in whether or not someone is going to successfully achieve a lift.  However, the vast majority of the people watching I do in the gym is simply to observe all of the crazy, self-invented exercises (if they actually qualify as such) people are performing at any given moment.

People make me smile.  Moving on, something that I’ve always found interesting during my people watching safaris is how different people interact in the gym.  Some are the social butterfly type. These people usually show up with at least one other person, stop to talk to everyone and their brother, including nearby strangers and prefer to make a social event out of their visit.  On the other hand you have the loner type.  This individual often trains alone (sometimes with a partner), always has headphones in and avoids outside contact at all cost.  One seems to feed off the interaction the gym provides, while the other seeks to enjoy a more solitary experience.

Myself, I fall into the latter category.  I’m really a bit of a hermit when it comes to training.  I would much rather train alone in my garage than head to the local gym.  Something about working out and spending some good quality time in my own head, with minimal outside distractions, always trumped a workout in a more social atmosphere for me.  I never really understood why that was, nor had I ever put much thought into it, until a couple of weeks ago.

My recent Christmas haul included a few books, who am I kidding, it was almost all books.  I’m a bit of a nerd at heart. I can embrace that.  Most of these books revolve around training methodology, anatomy or physiology but there were a few that dealt with other matters.  One such book, titled Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, did well to shine some light on my exercise preferences. 

Anatomy joke for the nerd in all of us

Throughout Cain’s book, she examines a number of studies dealing with the science and psychology surrounding personality and temperament; specifically introversion and extroversion.  Of particular interest was a chapter in the book revolving around the work of developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan.  Kagan’s work, a longitudinal study which began in 1989 and is still ongoing today, has been tracking inborn reactivity traits determined during infancy in 500 individuals.  What has been found through this particular study explains a lot.

Kagen’s hypothesis was that he would be able to successfully determine which infants would grow up to become introverted individuals and which infants would become extroverted individuals, simply based on their reaction to new stimuli at 4 months of age.  Infants who reacted calmly to new stimuli (popping balloons, bright colors, strong smells, new people and things) were categorized as low-reactive and believed to be likely to grow into extroverted personality types. Those infants who reacted strongly to new stimuli (cried, flailed about, etc) were labeled as high-reactive and likely to become introverted personality types.  I know, it seems a bit backwards at first, but when you think about it a little more deeply it begins to make a lot of sense.

What was being observed was essentially the underlying early underpinnings of the ability of one to cope with something like walking onto a stage to give a speech to a large group of unknown people.  Those who fall further toward the low-reactivity end of the spectrum will likely feel little stress from this situation and may very well feed off the stimulus provided and emerge feeling full of energy (extroverted personality type).  On the other hand, those who find themselves closer to the high-reactivity end of the spectrum may still be able to perform the task of delivering the speech with a high degree of success; however, because of having to deal with their body’s relative inability to shrug off the extra stimulation, they are likely to come away feeling wiped out and in need of some down time to re-charge (introverted personality type).

Jerome Kagen - Psychologist and former Harvard professor.  Kagen's work earned him the honor of being listed as the 22nd most eminent psychologist of the 20th century.

 So what does any of this have to do with physical performance, health, fitness or anything of the like?  Simple, for those who fall toward the introverted end of the spectrum (high reactive), you will likely be prone to enhanced mental health, energy and well being through spending time in a more solitary environment (or at least in one where unwanted stimulus can be easily blocked out or toned down) and zapped of energy / stressed by one of too much social stimulation.  Those in the other camp (extroverted personality / low-reactive), you will gain energy from and thrive in more social atmospheres while consequently being drained, board by and / or stressed by more solitary endeavors.  Determining where you stand from a personality perspective may allow you to manipulate your training environment to allow for a more pleasurable experience.

Now I’m not advocating that the introverted personality type cancel their gym membership and invest in a home gym, or that the extroverted individual who has something good going on at home immediately head to their local fitness center.  Instead, I’m suggesting that if you are currently finding your gym experience less than invigorating on a regular basis, or are struggling to sustain consistency, you might try tapping into your innate temperament to evoke improvement in the situation. 

Introvert

For the introverted types, experiment with things that allow you to avoid outside intrusion into your hang-out-session with your psyche.  Try wearing headphones if you don’t already, figure out the quiet times at the local gym and work to schedule your training sessions accordingly, or find a facility in the area with lower traffic volumes. 

Extrovert

For the extroverted individual, try joining a gym, visit a group based training environment (running, biking, lifting club, etc) in your area, or find a couple of like minded training partners and schedule to meet at a predetermined location and train together. 

 

If you find yourself wondering which end of the personality spectrum you naturally lean towards, I would suggest checking out Cain’s book for yourself.  It’s an interesting and relatively easy read.  Included within the text are a number of simple self evaluations that will help you determine the answer.  For those of you that are interested, I’ve included a link to Quiet below.  Happy Training.