The "Exercise Personality" Quiz
In her book "The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution," author Elena Rover offers a quiz to you help you identify your "fitness personality." Which type of sport or activity best suits you? Take Rover's quiz, below, to find out.
Part 1:Click here to learn more about your "fitness personality"
1. When planning your next vacation, you would love to be able to:
A. Head off alone to chill out and/or see some sights
B. Go visit a friend or take a romantic vacation with your mate
C. Get away with your family to a place that has something for everyone
D. Go on a cruise, take a group tour, share a ski cabin, or rent a villa with a bunch of friends
2. When coping with bad news such as a medical diagnosis, you are most likely to:
A. Keep it to yourself
B. Share your feelings with a trusted confidant
C. Tell your close friends and family so they can offer support
D. Spread the news so others will understand what you're going through or offer suggestions
3. If you were looking for a new job, you would like to be:
A. An entrepreneur with an innovative product who sinks or floats on your own merit
B. A partner in a highly regarded company so you have some support but plenty of autonomy
C. Part of a hand-picked team that produces top-notch work
D. The head of a group in a large company with ample resources and prestigious projects
4. For New Year's Eve, if you could have any of these choices, you would love to:
A. Pretend it's not a holiday
B. Go out on a date with one special person
C. Celebrate with a small dinner party attended by your friends
D. Go to Times Square or a huge black-tie soiree
Part 2:
1. For dinner with friends, you:
A. Cook one of your favorite recipes
B. Pick up a rotisserie chicken or takeout
C. Try a new cuisine
2. For your next vacation, you would love to go:
A. To a spa or beach resort, Disney, or the Grand Canyon
B. Gambling in Las Vegas or Monte Carlo
C. Rafting in Costa Rica or dogsledding in Alaska
3. When driving, you:
A. Tool along in the right lane going the speed limit
B. Shift into the left lane and flash your brights at slowpokes
C. Bail out on a traffic jam even if you don't know another route
4. Your favorite kind of leisure reading is:
A. The latest literary novel or a romance
B. A mystery or science fiction
C. Nonfiction such as travel, history, or a biography
5. Picking out a video for Saturday night, you select:
A. When Harry Met Sally, Shrek, Caddyshack, or anything starring Tom Hanks or Robin Williams
B. Speed, Matrix, Thelma and Louise, Miracle on Ice, a James Bond movie or anything starring Bruce Willis
C. Mr. & Mrs. Smith, What the Bleep Do We Know?, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a Star Wars or Indiana Jones title
Part 3:
1. Your dream job would be one in which you were:
A. Left alone to get your work done so you can go home at the end of the day
B. The veteran in the group who can show others the ropes
C. Promoted into a position that stretches your abilities—you can do it
2. In high school, your main goal was to:
A. Learn, get decent grades, and graduate
B. Get into the college of your choice or land a good job
C. Secure a spot on the honor roll or become the valedictorian
3. If you had unlimited time and funds, you would:
A. Buy an island getaway
B. Visit one place on each continent
C. Climb Mount Everest
4. In games such as charades, checkers, Pictionary, Cranium, or Scrabble, you most hope to:
A. Have fun
B. Make a few great moves
C. Win
Scoring the Quiz
Part 1:
Which letter answer did you choose two or more times?
A: SoloSports fit into all these categories. You can do an individual activity such as swimming, pick a sport that includes someone else such as tennis, sign up for a small group activity such as golf, or join a team, as in hockey.
B: Partner
C: Group
D: Team
Many athletes love to feel like part of a team. They want the camaraderie on the field as well as going out for a beer after practice. It's fun to fit into a group, feeling appreciated for your contribution to the overall performance. A team is a ready-made group of new friends who share at least one interest. For others, the team dynamics are too political and complicated; they'd rather go at their own pace or compete against their own best records. Note, however, that a solo type who is also competitive may be happiest as the star player on a team. Keep this tip in mind when you use the sport selection chart.
Making the choice of solo versus group sports also may be a question of logistics. Are you better at self-motivation, getting into your shorts and shoes when it suits you and heading out on your bike? Or would it help you get going to know that a whole group of people are counting on you to show up to play soccer?
If your answers are spread between the choices, try a sport with options. For example, many individual sports such as cycling can be done alone, with a friend, or in a group.
Part 2
Which letter answer did you choose two or more times?
A: Revel in the experience of activities at which you excel
B: Go for speed, get out in front and feel exhilaration
C: Love adventure and learning new skills
Your answers to the questions in this section could vary a lot. But if one letter came up two or three times, that's a good start in isolating the driving force behind how you like to spend your time.
The categories aren't mutually exclusive—you can love both speed and adventure, for example. Perhaps one edges the other out just a bit in importance. Put that category first when picking your sports, but take a look at the other choices that made your list.
For example, Lorie Parch, a 41-year-old writer in Scottsdale, Arizona, picked A three times and C twice. Lorie does love to become proficient in the sports she chooses, but she would get bored if there were not also an element of challenge and new skills to learn. She loves yoga, which she is adept at, but she stays engaged because there are always new poses to master, some of which are quite hard for her.
Part 3:
Which letter answer did you choose two or more times?
A: Not competitive
B: Competitive with myself
C: Competitive with others
It may seem that all sports are competitive, but some are much more so than others. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a sport is: "physical activity engaged in for pleasure" and the synonym is "fun." If scoring goals (or failing to score) is not your idea of fun, then a competitive sport is not for you. On the other hand, if you need a metric of success, then you can choose between sports that encourage you to beat your own personal best, such as trail running, or the ones in which you either win or lose based on the score, such as tennis.
How Your Score Adds Up
You'll find a chart with a complete list of sports that fit your personality in Elena Rover's book, "The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution."
"The Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution" by Elena Rover