VidaProFit: Caracterização dos Profissionais de Fitness em Portugal: VidaProFit

Abstract

VidaProFit intends to characterize fitness professionals in Portugal, namely Technical Directors and Physical Exercise Technician, regarding socio-demographic variables and their intervention. A questionnaire was built and validated, and professionals respond in an online platform. Data were collected between November 2019 and March 2020, with a sample of 445 professionals. Regarding the sociodemographic characterization, the professionals have an average age of 30,4 years, professional experience of 8,7 years and most of them are single, without children and graduates. The most performed functions are group classes, exercise room and personal training. Regarding working hours, 58% work 35 hours or more and 42% less or 34 hours, although 66,3% indicate that they don´t have other profession. Most of the professionals perform functions in gyms/health clubs and have a job as an independent worker with a salary between €631.98 and €842.63. Regarding the verification of the association between the variables age and professional experience and the number of hours per function, it was found that a higher age and number of years of professional experience are significantly associated with the higher number of hours of more associated with coordination tasks, seeming to indicate that as professionals get older and get experience they perform more this type of functions.