Understanding fitness personality revolutionizing how people and organizations approach exercise

Suzanne Brue develops colour-coded methodology founded on Myers-Briggs

Wednesday December 2, 2009 — by Jennifer Higgs

While many organizations have been using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for years, a new application is set to revolutionize corporate wellness programs though matching employees to their personal fitness colour.

Suzanne Brue is the author of The 8 Colors of Fitness: Discover Your Color-Coded Fitness Personality and Create an Exercise Program You'll Never Quit and president of the Association for Psychological Type International. Suzanne Brue

Suzanne Brue

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality assessment tool with a total of 16 different types.

As a Myers-Briggs practitioner and regular exerciser for years, Brue developed the idea to combine the two fields when she was watching a physical therapist work with her mother.

Knowing her mother’s Myers-Briggs personality type, Brue could see the instructions were not clear enough. Brue noted a huge difference after she suggested the therapist tell her mother how many reps and sets needed for each exercise.

Brue, whose Myers-Briggs type is ENFJ, was sparked to start interviewing other people and then launched a full-fledged study into personality types and how they fall into different exercise patterns.

The results were published her 2008 book, which gives people a fitness colour based on their personality type. The colours are: blue (ISTJ, ISFJ), gold (ESTJ, ESFJ), red (ESTP, ESFP), green (ISTP, ISFP), silver (ENTP, ENFP), saffron (INTP, INFP), white (INTJ, INFJ) and purple (ENTJ, ENFJ).

“The biggest thing that I think (the research) provided was it gave people a way to organize, to understand their fitness personality which people had never really thought about before,” Brue tells Axiom News.

Though people readily accept differences in career choices and other interests, there wasn’t a framework for similar differences when it comes to physical activity, she says.

“My grandest vision is that people will no longer be sedentary and will find a way to not make exercise into a burden in their lives and will be able to move more naturally . . . that everybody will know what their colour is and be able to respect that about themselves and use that,” says Brue.

For example, if someone prefers walking outside in the woods it doesn’t make sense to make them exercise on a treadmill.

Brue, who is based in Vermont and Florida, says she constantly receives feedback from people who have successfully changed their fitness routine after learning of their colour. One woman, who falls into the silver harmony type, didn’t before think she could go to the gym and never go into the locker room, which for her personality may mean she never makes it to the workout because it adds a decision point.

Beyond individuals, Brue’s work is being picked up by fitness clubs and organizations that have workplace wellness programs.

“A fit workforce is going to be a much more effective workforce and it’s going to reduce healthcare costs which are just completely out of control certainly in the U.S., so I think companies really see that they will benefit tremendously if their employees are in better shape,” she says.

Brue envisions corporations integrating the eight colours as the first part of their wellness program so people understand their fitness personality and make better decisions about exercise.

She is developing a program for organizations which includes six one-hour modules presented to wellness professionals who will then facilitate the program in their organization. Brue is creating resources such as DVDs, a facilitator’s handbook and lessons, and plans to launch the program by April.

“Wellness coaches are now interested in this and that’s getting to be a big field in the U.S.,” she says, noting she recently presented two workshops for Wellcoaches Corporation that is working with the American College of Sports Medicine.

“I am very idealistic and hopeful that this will spread and the momentum will continue,” she says.

“I think fundamentally the Myers-Briggs goal was for people to use their gifts to improve their life and that self-knowledge that they have, so this is just an extension and it’s exciting,” says Brue.

To learn more about Brue’s work and take a quiz to find out your fitness colour visit the8colorsoffitness.com.

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