In a society where the proportion of older people is growing, ensuring the quality of life brings many challenges. Regular physical activity plays an important role as it affects physical and mental health and has a major impact on the course of aging. Elderly people encounter many obstacles in their involvement in the training process, which poses a great challenge to sports coaches and kinesiologists in choosing the appropriate approach. Knowing the motives that will help seniors persevere in the exercise process is key.
The main purpose of this master's thesis was to investigate the motives for participation in physical activity of senior citizens in Slovenia and to investigate their attitude towards exercise using online tools. The study included 199 members of the društvo Šola zdravja, of which 188 were women and 11 were men. All respondents participate in the exercise of "1000 gibov”, which takes place in 88 municipalities across Slovenia. The members of the association filled in the online questionnaire Scale of motives for physical activity (PMQ - Gill, adaptation LM: Tušak 1997) and a non-standardized part of the questionnaire, which was intended for those who also participated in online exercise during the epidemic of a new viral disease COVID-19. With the help of factor analysis, we obtained 7 factors, where the most pronounced factor was "performance status", which explains 33.1% of the variance. Other factors include “experiencing excitement and challenges”, “friendship and group atmosphere”, “releasing energy and gaining new skills”, “productivity and fun”, “desire to progress with proper leadership” and “health and recreation”. By comparing the motives for participation in physical activity, we found that they do not differ according to the gender and level of education of the respondents, but partly differ according to the cohesion region of Slovenia and age. The second part of the questionnaire was answered by 119 respondents. The highest level of agreement was expressed in the statements "I am motivated to exercise because I am aware of the positive effects of physical activity" (M = 4.42) and the statement "exercise is time only for me" (M = 4.37). The attitude towards online exercise among the members points in a positive direction, but only 16.4% agree with the statement "I like exercising online more than exercising outdoors". Motivation is an important factor that needs to be considered when planning an exercise both in the home environment and in groups. More research is still needed in the field of attitudes towards online exercise across the elderly population. A stimulating social environment, easy accessibility, health benefits and enjoyment are the criteria met by the exercise of "1000 gibov" and their 4891 members, who do something for themselves and society every morning.
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