I recently wrote a post about Sensei's mobile phone fitness trainer for people desiring motivation, personalized recipes and other fitness tools/goals delivered via a text message. New research reveals automated exercise reminders are effective.

Stanford University researchers studied 218 sedentary adults over the age of 55 in the Community Health Advice by Telephone (CHAT) study. The study's goal was to get the previously sedentary participants to walk briskly for 30 minutes or do some alternative medium-intense activity for a total of approximately 150 minutes per week. One-third of the group received no phone calls, one-third were called by trained health educators and the final third received computer-generated, interactive phone calls (e.g., press "1" if you made last week's goal) -- along with prerecorded motivational advice.

Guess what? After a year, both called groups attained the 150 minute goal. Human-called participants averaged 178 minutes, while the computer-called averaged a respectable157 minutes. The zero-call group came in much lower, only 118 minutes. I respond quite well to external motivation for personal fitness -- reading about fitness and health, along with blogging for That's Fit, spark me to workout significantly more.

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