Case Study 1: Vicky returns to exercise and sport
Vicky is a 40-year-old teacher. She is married and has two young children.
At a routine health check, the GP informed Vicky that she has high blood pressure and suggested that she is a little overweight. When she was younger, Vicky played badminton and she wants to play again.
The GP suggested that Vicky should start a fitness and weight loss programme. Vicky joined a local gym and planned to go there three times a week. At the beginning, she would go straight to the gym after work. She liked the buzz of the gym, but ached from the new exercises and was getting home late in the evenings. Then, in the fourth week, after a few nights of working late, she was feeling so tired that she stopped going to the gym.
Vicky’s husband is worried about her poor health and is making healthier meals at home and encouraging Vicky to get back to her fitness programme. Vicky’s work colleagues have organised a friendly badminton league and are pushing Vicky to join. The club will start in three months’ time and Vicky is keen to get her fitness level up and her weight down in order to get back into the sport that she loves.
Vicky goes back to the gym and enrols on a six-week ‘fitness start-up’ programme with a personal trainer who helps her to set fitness goals and designs a progressive exercise programme for her. Vicky’s personal trainer works with her once a week at the gym, guiding her through her programme and setting her exercises to work through on a twice-a-week basis. This time, Vicky enjoys her experience at the gym more. She attends all six sessions with the personal trainer, but struggles to maintain the other twice-a-week sessions. To replace these, she walks to work and back twice a week instead of driving (the walk is 25 minutes each way). In addition to this, at weekends she has started going out on her bike with her sons and husband.
By the eighth week Vicky is feeling more energetic. Her husband and her colleagues at work have commented that she seems to have lost weight and looks better.
Questions
a. Identify three barriers that may affect Vicky’s ability to ‘adhere’ to sport and fitness activities. (50 words/6 marks)
b. Describe why models of behaviour change may be useful to sport and fitness practitioners. (100 words/8 marks)
c. Apply the transtheoretical model of behaviour change to explain how Vicky was moving between the stages. (350 words/16 marks)
d.By the eighth week, Vicky appears to be in the action stage of the transtheoretical model. What psychological techniques could be used to help her to move into the maintenance stage? (500 words/25 marks)
Part 2
Case Study 2: ‘Olympic dreams: ructions in rugby’ (900 words/45 marks)
Watch the video clip ‘Olympic dreams: ructions in rugby’, below, which was taken from the BBC television programme Olympic Dreams, which aired before the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics. Please note that this clip contains language that some people may find offensive. The transcript of this film will also provide a useful reference point; it can be found in the ‘Other formats’ area of the Module Website.
Show transcriptDownload
Olympic dreams: ructions in rugby
Discuss whether the team featured in the clip functions effectively, taking into consideration issues such as team climate, team cohesion and performance and effective team leadership.
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