Table 1.
Categories, themes and verbatim examples from the interviews
| Category and theme | Verbatim example |
|---|---|
| Type of exercise or physical activity | |
| Therapeutic exercise | Well one, I lie, you have to lie flat on the bed and I have to lift me knee up and hold it up as long as I can, then let it down and then you lift one leg over the other one that’s straight and then you try to lift. You can feel that it’s stretching, it sounds silly, but it does do your knees good. They click a bit, but, it does do them good. #534 |
| Lifestyle activity | I suppose I combine the exercises with the way I live and the way I bend down for things, like this afternoon, I was putting some shopping away in the cupboards, the lower cupboards, so, I squat rather than kneel down, I’ll squat to try and make my quads stronger. #537 |
| Preference about type of exercise | What doesn’t help is I used to do a lot of walking and walking seemed to compound the situation more than it should have done, so I gave up walking and took to cycling. Cycling’s been the winning factor … . #304 |
| I don’t like bike riding, I hate bikes, I just don’t want any bikes, I’ve had enough bikes when I was small. I have an aversion totally … . #1178 | |
| Dose | |
| Amount | If there are days when it’s particularly bad, sometimes it’ll go into two or three days or so, and then I just do what I can. I still move about, but more slowly and I use the stair lift more. When I don’t have to use the stair lift, I’ll walk upstairs, because that’s helping to keep the knee muscles built up. #983 |
| The last couple of years, I was going through a divorce so obviously, motivation to race, just time allocation, everything was topsy-turvy for a while but that’s all sorted now. #442 | |
| Moderate-intensity exercise | If you’ve ever felt a, sort of, jar in your knee when you’ve landed on it, it makes you wary of the high impact stuff and the exercise people don’t recommend it at our age. They do these over 50’s classes now, which are lower impact. I’m sure keeping it gently going is the best bet, it seems to work for me anyway. #930 |
| Listen to your body | Sitting with it up is not comfortable, it’s better to have it down and then, as you said, gradually just keep, if you like, swinging it and then you’re moving the joints, as long as it doesn’t hurt. It just tells you to listen to your body really, that’s what it’s saying. #1115 |
| Previous exercise experiences guide behaviour | It’s, you know, I know if it’s like a push-off movement with a twist in it, I’d fall over. There’s no doubt about that because I’ve done it. So, you learn by, you know, if someone keeps prodding you with a pin, in the end you just say don’t, it hurts me (laughs). #537 |
| Setting of exercise | |
| Home | I’m restricted because of the wife and not being able to leave her for any length of time, all this medication that doesn’t help because a couple of hours after you’ve had it, it has adverse affects, but it seems to wear off, then, so exercising in a group, I don’t think I’d be able to accommodate it now, much as I’d like to. That’s the way it is, at the moment. #993 |
| With others | I think doing exercises on your own, unless you’re a very introverted person, is very boring. You go to a class and you all have a bit of a joke and join in, you know, and you all say I can do it with this leg and I can’t do it with that leg, or arm, or whatever. I think it’s good psychologically to be gathered in a crowd and also, to know that there are people who are worse off than you are. It doesn’t half boost the morale, it doesn’t do any harm to see people who are struggling more than you are. I think, also, that give you the impetus to work at it, myself. #930 |