Being and feeling addicted to exercise: Reflections from a neophenomenological perspective

ABSTRACT

Since its emergence during the 1970s, scientific research on exercise addiction has been interested primarily in the mental and physical causes and consequences of the behaviour of exercise addicts. This focus can be ascribed to the dominance of psychology and medicine among this field of research. This paper wishes to contribute to these thematic priorities and basic approaches by taking a phenomenological perspective as a basis, thus making the embodied and the personal dimension of exercise addiction the centre of attention. This approach aims towards two goals: First, it shall be pointed out that philosophy, especially phenomenology, can make a profound contribution to research concerning exercise addiction. Second, a phenomenological approach, which has so far remained mostly unknown to international sport philosophy, will be introduced, namely the New Phenomenology founded by German philosopher Hermann Schmitz. For this purpose, the objective of New Phenomenology will be explained as well as its two pivotal terms ‘felt body’ and ‘person’. Based on this, the main features of a neophenomenological analysis of exercise addiction that puts a focus on embodied experience and one’s personal situation will be outlined. Lastly, the analytical potential of New Phenomenology will be elucidated by means of an empirical case analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Exercise addiction
• New Phenomenology
• Hermann Schmitz
• felt body
• person

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The criteria for substance-based addictions is derived from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association and from the WHO’s International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). Exercise addiction is not listed in the current editions DSM-V and ICD-10.

2. A sociological analysis on exercise addiction was conducted by Bette and Gugutzer (2012), while a historical study was submitted by Plymire (2004).

3. Even within the field of philosophy of addiction, exercise addiction is not given any attention. On this, see Foddy (2011), or Pickard and Ahmed (2019).

4. Nevertheless, Schmitz does find some international reception through the works of other authors relating to his theories; see, for example, Slaby (2009), Griffero (2014, 2017), or Julmi (2018).

5. Schmitz authored a broad and critical examination on Husserl’s and Heidegger’s theories in Schmitz (1996).

6. References concerning quotes from the interview refer to the respective line of the interview’s transcript.

7. Capital letters indicate that the word has been spoken in an emphasized manner.

Additional information

Funding

The translation of this article was supported by the Stiftung Neue Phaenomenologie (SNP).