File this under in case you missed it…A late-2025 qualitative study in BMC Public Health contends that an overlooked cognitive habit – all-or-nothing thinking – might be responsible for sabotaging your exercise routines.
And it appears to pose an even bigger threat to those who genuinely want to be more active but struggle to stick with it.
The research, led by University of Michigan psychologist Michelle Segar and her team, explores how rigid beliefs about what “counts” as a real workout can accelerate everyday disruptions into full stop signs.
“Exercise-related all-or-nothing thinking occurs when a specific exercise plan becomes unworkable,” Segar pointed out. “At this moment, when people cannot perfectly adhere to their plan (the ‘all’), they choose not to exercise at all rather than modify the plan.”
When ‘Perfect’ Threatens ‘Possible’
All-or-nothing thinking is an established cognitive distortion, normally tied to anxiety, depression, and even disordered eating. But fitness researchers have largely ignored it.
In this paper, Segar’s crew classifies it as a mindset where people refuse to modify an exercise plan if it can’t be executed perfectly. They’d rather opt out than adapt to changing circumstances.
To take a close look at how this plays out in practice, the researchers conducted four focus groups with 27 adults who described themselves as having tried, repeatedly, to exercise regularly but failed to maintain it. Participants included college students and community members between the ages of 19 and 79.
Across groups, the same pattern kept showing up. Most participants clung to rigid, idealized criteria for what exercise should look like. For some, it meant a specific duration – 45 or 60 minutes. For others, exercise demanded a high intensity effort, which included sweating, or going to the gym. Many of them insisted that shorter sessions, lighter movement, or walking often didn’t “count.”
“If I can’t do the whole plan, I just won’t do it,” several participants admitted. That inflexibility laid the foundation for four interconnected themes.
Four Themes Emerged
- Rigid idealized exercise criteria lay the groundwork for all-or-nothing thinking. Participants described clear mental thresholds for what they considered a valid workout. Anything below that felt meaningless.
- Seeking excuses to not exercise. Many participants – especially the older ones – went out of their way to find reasons to skip the gym. They described the experience as unpleasant and effortful, and emotionally loaded. Small obstacles grew into convenient excuses.
- “Exercise is expendable.” When time conflicts arose, participants usually dropped exercise first. Unlike most of life’s other demands, skipping a workout doesn’t appears to have any consequences. Even when other options were just as viable, most participants still skipped a trip to the gym or a walk with a friend.
- Baffled by inactivity in light of past exercise positivity. Participants expressed legitimate confusion about their own inactivity, especially since so many of them recalled working out as a pleasant experience.
“The all-or-nothing mindset creates high costs for exercising,” Segar said. “Most people are tired and overwhelmed, so in the moment of decision, the immediate costs of exercising feel much bigger than the benefits, making it a low-value choice. This makes doing ‘nothing’ a prudent choice and desirable exit strategy. Decisions to not exercise are often made outside of awareness—so people are likely unaware that choosing to forgo their exercise plans could be related to having an all-or-nothing mindset.”
An Exercise Mindset Shaped by Culture
The researchers argue that this behavior isn’t necessarily irrational. It’s learned behavior.
For decades, public health messaging – not to mention peer pressure – has focused attention on thresholds, whether its time spent on a treadmill spent running, reps or consecutive workout days. Those guidelines, most of which remain based on real evidence, could be unintentionally conditioning people that exercise only matters if it meets specific criteria. Fall short of any goal, and participants felt like they failed.
Even as more recent studies have reinforced the notion that “some movement is better than none,” this latest research suggests that people who’ve struggled with exercise might have already internalized stricter rules. They also struggle to unlearn them.
The result is what the authors describe as an exercise-related all-or-nothing mindset: a culturally conditioned filter that quietly devalues flexible, imperfect movement and makes opting out feel reasonable, protective even.
Public Health and Intervention Implications
What the researchers uncovered could help explain why the intention-behavior gap in exercise remains so persistently wide. Nearly half of people who intend to exercise don’t. And most who start give up quickly.
But the authors argue that the problem might not be motivation at all. If only “perfect” exercise feels like it’s worth the trouble, then doing nothing can seem like the most rational choice.
Breaking that cycle, they add, requires more than a pep talk. It might just demand a fundamental reframing of how we discuss – and encourage – physical fitness. The researchers insist that we might need to back away from rigid standards and embrace a more flexible, identity-supporting approach.
This study, despite its small sample size, still raises an unsettling possibility – well-intentioned messaging might give people the need permission to quit.
Further Reading
Exercise is Even Better Than We Thought for Brain Health
Your Personality Could Unlock A Love of Exercise
Exercise Proves Effective in Combating Insomnia in Older Adults
