What attracts adult individuals to participate in Wresfit? : A quantitative study of how motivational factors and barriers affect participation in training

This quantitative study has been done in cooperation with the Swedish Wrestling Association within the research field of sport science. The sports movement in Sweden wants to get more individuals physically active and the Wrestling Association wants to be a part of this by introducing a new training form, called Wresfit. A form of physical training aimed at exercisers, old wrestlers, exercise wrestlers, sports teams, and people who have never before been in contact with neither wrestling or any other sport for that matter. In short, for anyone who wants to try a challenging form of training. The purpose of the study was to investigate what motivates and how barriers influences adult individuals to participate in Wresfit and to describe and compare patterns in participants' responses. To explain this, a psychological theory called Self-Determination theory was used, which is a simplification of reality to investigate people's motivation. Data was collected with the help of a web survey (n=95) among 25 different wrestling clubs in Sweden. The result showed some motivating factors that motivate adult individuals more than others. The highest-rated motivation factors were for the sake of strength, for joy, for the community, and good instructors. The results also show that there are some differences between people with and people without earlier wrestling background. Participants consider that barriers to not participating in the training form are that there is a lack of time, injury problems, laziness, and prejudice against the wrestling. The study's results conclude that in the responses, there were a lot of interesting explanations about problems and measures that the business should change to attract more people without previous wrestling experience