Exercise/fitness & psychology?

[JFKerns]

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Hi everybody,

Okay so I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do and I'm kind of stuck. I graduated last semester with a B.S. in Psychology as well as a B.S. in Kinesiology. Most people expected me to go into sports psych with those degrees, but I'm not sure that's what I want to do. I'm currently working as a personal trainer and I'm a natural bodybuilding competitor, so health and fitness is a huge passion of mine. I know I want to continue on to grad school as I scored quite well on the GRE and I spent 5 years building up my CV. I'm just not sure what would be the best way to utilize my passion and experience in both fields.

So what I'm asking is... does anyone have any interesting ideas on how I might be able to pursue a degree (Masters or PhD) in these areas? Trust me I've spent countless hours searching for ideas, I'm just always interested to hear what other people think.

By the way, before anyone says "health psychology", I'm not as interested in working in a clinical hospital type setting. I'm more interested in improving the health and fitness of the normal, relatively health population rather than the pathological. Thanks ahead of time for any guidance!!

 

[Psychadelic2012]

I'm more interested in improving the health and fitness of the normal, relatively health population rather than the pathological.

What DO you think you want to do? Ballpark, I mean? Do you think you want to be a therapist of some kind? Is there an area of research that interests you? Teach? Continue to be active with personal training and do more of that? With all of these questions, what specific areas of health/fitness and what population of people are you interested in?

There are so many options. I have a background in a more applied, physically-oriented field as well. To save my anonymity, I won't say what my path was, but there originally was a direct link to a type of counseling that fit for me--but it wasn't my thing. So I went more into the biomechanical aspect of my work, but then I wanted more intellectual stimulation and more long-term stability (and less strain on my body). So I explored and found a niche that then had a psychological aspect to it that I really dug.

Anyway, there are niches galore in your area--from research on psychological aspects of various athletes and their sports, to being a therapist or consultant that emphasizes nutrition and/or exercise with treatment, to running a weight loss clinic that focuses on behavioral modification, to integrating a specific/alternative modality (such as acupuncture) with a mental health specialty...it's endless. What interests you most? What makes you want to get out of bed in the morning and make a difference?

By the way, health psychology can certainly be that--psychology of health. Also, stress is a big thing right now. Any interest in that?

 

[deuce22]

Maybe look at closely related fields that don't fall under the umbrella of psychology, like Integrative Physiology. here's a link for a program at UC-Boulder (which was the first of it's kind):

http://www.colorado.edu/intphys/welcome/index.html

Edit: I should note that the program offers an MA and PhD, which would enable you to "get a feel" for the program (doing mostly research) before pledging your time for 6 years.

 

[deleted176373]

Hi everybody,

Okay so I've been trying to figure out what I'm going to do and I'm kind of stuck. I graduated last semester with a B.S. in Psychology as well as a B.S. in Kinesiology. Most people expected me to go into sports psych with those degrees, but I'm not sure that's what I want to do. I'm currently working as a personal trainer and I'm a natural bodybuilding competitor, so health and fitness is a huge passion of mine. I know I want to continue on to grad school as I scored quite well on the GRE and I spent 5 years building up my CV. I'm just not sure what would be the best way to utilize my passion and experience in both fields.

So what I'm asking is... does anyone have any interesting ideas on how I might be able to pursue a degree (Masters or PhD) in these areas? Trust me I've spent countless hours searching for ideas, I'm just always interested to hear what other people think.

By the way, before anyone says "health psychology", I'm not as interested in working in a clinical hospital type setting. I'm more interested in improving the health and fitness of the normal, relatively health population rather than the pathological. Thanks ahead of time for any guidance!!

The military uses psychologists in some cases to do unique work with exercise and physical fitness (both civilian and military psychologists). That is one possible route to look at. Here is an example: http://www.usuhs.mil/mem/humanperform.html

The military devotes a fair amount of resources to working with generally healthy populations and fostering performance in those populations. USUHS has a medical/clinical psychology graduate program.

 

[JFKerns]

Hey guys, thanks for the advice. Sorry about the vagueness of my question. I guess I'm not sure exactly what I want to do, which is why I left it very open ended. There are certain aspects of being a personal trainer that I do like, and others that I don't. For quite a while my goal was to be a research professor, but there's many aspects of that that scare me as well. So part of my goal is to not pigeon hole myself into one career in case it doesn't end up like I hope it will.

Positive psychology has really interested me because of it's focus on enhancing the lives of normal healthy people rather than just "relieving misery". This is also what interests me in the realm of health and fitness. So part of me would be interested in researching something in this field.

Sports psychology was really interesting to me before, because it does have a similar emphasis on improving performance for motivated people. Unfortunately it seems like it is very difficult to make a good living as a sports psychologist. So it seems like its going to be a matter of finding a balance between something that is really interesting, and something that pays decently well.

 

[Ollie123]

Have you looked into public health? It would have less of a "personal" feel relative to psychology (i.e. you wouldn't be doing therapy...but it sounds like you aren't that interested in therapy anyways). However, you could work on improving the fitness of normal populations, the role of things like healthcare messaging, development of optimal athletic programs for "health", exercise activity after various health problems, obesity prevention, etc. Public health is just the first thing that springs to mind - many schools also have formal "exercise science" PhD programs, and some may collaborate with psychology or even offer joint degrees.