Physical activity offers opportunities for positive social interactions, including social support. Social support involves anything that people do to help another person. For adults, social support plays an important role in physical activity– it helps them adopt and maintain physical activity and other health behaviours and helps meet the basic human need for social connection. As a fitness professional, you play an important role in both providing social support and fostering an environment where physical activity participants support one another. Bringing a group of people together does not guarantee social support: people and relationships are complex, but being intentional about facilitating social support can enhance physical activity spaces and help people thrive.

Learning objectives:

This course offers strategies for providing social support to adults in physical activity contexts. Upon completion, you should be able to:

1. Understand what social support is, who typically provides it, why it is important, contextual factors that affect it, and the need for communication about it in physical activity contexts for adults.
2. Identify and use strategies to facilitate 9 different types of social support.

Many of the strategies included in this course may be familiar to you or be strategies you are already regularly using. That is great! Our hope is that upon completion you will gain knowledge and tools about how to intentionally foster an environment where social support can be developed.

Who is this course for:

Fitness professionals, including:

• Certified exercise leaders, instructors, trainers, recreation therapists, and physical activity coordinators.
• Other practitioners and volunteers interested in physical activity instruction for adults.

Scope of this course:

• This course will offer a wide variety of possible ways to provide social support; however, we recognize that some strategies may not be a good fit for all fitness professionals’ roles. If there are suggested strategies that are not within your scope, are not feasible in your setting, or are not in alignment with your workplace’s policies and procedures, consider a different approach to facilitating that type of social support
• This course is NOT a replacement for training that focuses on working with specific populations or those who have individual health, wellness, or physical activity considerations. If there are suggested strategies that would not be a good fit with the population you work with, consider a different way to facilitate that type of social support.

Glossary of terms:

The terms below are included throughout the course. Definitions are provided for your reference.

• Autonomy support: a style of providing support where you focus on providing choices and options and avoid controlling behaviour.
• Mastery feedback: an approach to feedback that focuses on reinforcing individual progress and improvement, rather than on how the person’s performance compares to others.
• Self-compassion: when experiencing a challenge or stressor, treating oneself with kindness and understanding, recognizing that imperfection and suffering are part of the shared human experience, and having mindful awareness of emotions instead of over-identifying with or suppressing them.
• Self-efficacy: a person’s belief in their own capabilities to complete a task or achieve a goal.
• Social interactions or social contact: our encounters with other people.
• Social relationships, social connections, social bonds, and social ties: the connections we feel with other people, particularly when we have recurring interactions that are meaningful to us.
• Social support: interactions that help another person. Social support can be specific, such as support to participate in physical activity, or it can be general, such as knowing you have support to cope with life challenges that might arise. Social support can help people overcome difficulties and help people to grow and thrive.

Understanding social support in physical activity contexts for adults:

When providing social support, there are a few key things to keep in mind:

1. Both you (i.e., fitness professionals) as well as the other participants can provide social support. These different sources of support can meet both similar and complementary needs.
2. Contextual factors can affect the relevance or feasibility of different social support strategies. There are many different contexts in which you may be working that may make some strategies more or less appropriate for you to use. Some considerations include i) population (e.g., age, if the program serves people with a specific chronic condition, etc.), ii) length of program, iii) type of physical activities, iv) delivery mode (e.g., in person, online, hybrid, etc.), v) group size, vi) structure of the program, vii) frequency of program meetings, viii) scheduling considerations, ix) whether they are drop-in or registered programs, and x) if they are ongoing or end after a set period of time, among other factors. These contextual factors impact how you select and use social support strategies. Given this, some strategies may be more or less relevant or feasible to you. Consider these strategies as your toolbox to choose from based on what is most applicable to your work.
3. People have different needs and preferences: communication is key. People have different wants, needs, and preferences for social support. The more you learn about the people you work with and are responsive to their needs, the more effective your support will be. Different populations may also have different support needs. Communication helps build trust over time, which is important for providing effective support. Ask questions, listen, and be responsive to participants’ needs and preferences when selecting strategies from your toolbox.

Types of social support and when to use them:

Social support strategies used in physical activity contexts for adults can be divided into 9 different categories. The table below identifies each category, and ideas about when each type of support is particularly helpful.

Format of course:

Each module will cover one type of social support and will include:

1) A definition of that type of social support

2) A reflection question to encourage you to reflect on your current instructional practices related to that type of social support.

3) A section called getting started that includes strategies about how to facilitate that type of social support that provides a foundation you can later build upon, and/or tend to be more convenient or easily integrated into instructional practices.

4) A section called adding on that includes more advanced strategies that may require additional planning or time, may be more challenging to implement, or may require a higher level of skill or tailoring.

5) A learning activity that helps you customize the content to the population, activities, and delivery mode (e.g., in person, online, hybrid) relevant to your work.

6) Making it your own invites you to consider what information from the module you can integrate into your instructional practice.