Psychological concomitants of crossfit training: does more exercise really make your everyday psychological functioning better?

The research aimed at studying relationships between characteristics of CrossFit training (time elapsed from starting with training, weekly session frequency) and indicators of well-being, self-esteem, body awareness, satisfaction with body image, and perceived body competence. Participants, 186 Norwegian individuals (57.5% female; mean age: 28.9±7.81 years) regularly participating in CrossFit, completed online surveys (WHO-5 Well-being Scale, PANAS, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Body Awareness Questionnaire, Body Image Ideals Questionnaire, Body Competence Scale, motivations for doing CrossFit). Weekly frequency of CrossFit sessions was not connected with positive affect (Kendall tau_b=-.02, p=.766), negative affect (-.01, p=.861), or well-being (.10, p=.068) in the correlation analysis. Similarly, overall CrossFit experience (duration x frequency) was not related to global self-esteem (Kendall tau_b=.01, p=.778), body awareness (-.04, p=.379), body image dissatisfaction (.04, p=.423), and body competence (-.07, p=.184). In the regression analysis, well-being was connected with male gender (β=-.205, p<.01), time elapsed from starting with CrossFit (β=-0.178, p<.05), dissatisfaction with body image (β=-.218, p<.01), and body awareness (β=.149, p<.05). Global self-esteem was related to age (β=.164, p<.05), body competence (β=.152, p<.05), and body image dissatisfaction (β=-.276, p<.001). CrossFit training was not connected with higher levels of psychological functioning (well-being, affect, body awareness, and self-esteem) and satisfaction with body image