Can Cycling Be Addictive? A Qualitative Interview Study Among Amateur Female Cyclists

Abstract

Exercise and healthy eating are proposed as a recommended lifestyle by the World Health Organization with several positive outcomes, including a decrease in pathologies such as diabetes and reduction in mortality rates. However, research suggests that there is the potential for exercise behaviour to become addictive among a small minority of individuals, which detrimentally impacts their lives. The risk of exercise addiction increases for endurance sports, of which cycling is considered one, given the intense physical and psychological demands, due to elevation and distance, in amateur cycling events. Understanding the risk factors specific to cycling is worthy of investigation, as it is not clear whether cycling can become an addiction. Using the ‘addiction component model’ as a framework, qualitative analysis was used to determine whether symptoms of addiction were present among a sample of eight female cyclists. Through the use of thematic analysis, the results showed that symptoms of addiction were reported by participants. Three themes were generated from research interviews comprising ‘addiction components’ (i.e. salience, conflict, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, and cycling despite health problems), ‘enabling infrastructure’ (i.e. supportive work, supportive family and friends), and ‘striving for excellence’ (i.e. needing to be the best, pushing too far, and having unrealistic expectation), currently measured in the ‘addiction component model’. There were also novel themes including ‘cycling above health’ where the participant continues to cycle against medical advice; ‘enabling infrastructure’ where work, family, and friends are accepting of cycling; and ‘striving for excellence’ where the participants ‘needing to be the best’ when comparing themselves to their peers, ‘pushing too far’ to achieve the goal set, and finally ‘unrealistic expectations’ resulting in negative comparison to peers. These findings suggest that addiction to cycling should be investigated further, and implications may necessitate clinical intervention to find alternative coping mechanisms when exercise is not available to an individual as there is a likelihood that individuals will continue to exercise in spite of injury and against medical advice.

Exercise dependence in endurance sports: Relation to emotional regulation and negative affectivity

“…Next, it was found that physical exercise dependence correlated positively with difficulties in emotional regulation and with negative affectivity. These results suggest that similar to other behavioral addictions such as pathological gambling (Estévez, Jauregui, et al, 2017;Marchica et al, 2019), there is a relationship between addictive behaviors, emotional regulation difficulties and negative affectivity (Baker et al, 2021;Baker et al, 2004). In the case of physical exercise dependence, the role of emotion regulation is still poorly understood to date (Kun et al, 2021).…”

Mental Health Disorders in Ultra Endurance Athletes per ICD-11 Classifications: A Review of an Overlooked Community in Sports Psychiatry

“…EXD appeared in nine of the 25 studies, though it is not currently included as a specific category in the ICD-11 or DSM-V [ 35 , 37 ]. The addiction-component model, which utilizes criteria for addiction that appears in both behavioral and problematic substance use, has been adopted to diagnose exercise addiction in female cyclists [ 67 ]. Since gambling, a behavioral addiction also diagnosed with the addiction-component model, was added to the ICD-11 in 2022 [ 68 ], it is hoped that exercise may be included as well.…”

“There just isn't any other option—so we just have to put up with it”: mental health in women's cycling and the necessity of structural change

“…Per the Cyclists' Alliance survey of n = 124 professional female riders, 22% of respondents identified mental health as a reason to consider retiring from the sport ( 18 ). Despite not being classified within the International Classification of Diseases as a mental disorder, exercise addiction can also be prominent in women's cycling ( 56 , 57 ). Exercise addiction may further compromise athlete wellbeing, as it may lead to injury, low energy availability, hypothalamic amenorrhea, or Overtraining Syndrome and associated wide-ranging physical and mental disturbances ( 58 , 59 ).…”