A RESEARCH ON OUTDOOR FITNESS PARKS AND THEIR USERS

The purpose of this study was to examine exercise time and frequency spent at outdoor fitness parks, knowledge level of the participants with respect to exercise equipments, their choice in footwear during exercise accident and injury occurring before and after doing exercise at fitness parks. The data used in this study were collected from users of 33 fitness parks located in Eskişehir. The sample of this study was composed of randomly selected 176 female and 24 male (n=200). The sample profile indicates that respondents who are 36-40 years old occupy almost half of the sample (% 41, n=82); the gender of the respondents is dominated by females (% 88, n=176); almost all of the participants are housewives (% 75, n=150) and married (% 84.5, n=169). In terms of level of education, it was revealed that %72 of the participants have high school degree (n=144). According to results, significant part of the participants use parks generally in the mornings between 8.00 and 12.00 (% 48.5, n=97). Respondents average length of time was 60 minutes or less (% 42, n=84) and 2-4 days per week (% 53, n=106). A significant negative correlation was found between choice of footwear during exercise and health problems occurred in outdoor fitness parks (r= -180, p= .011). It was also found out that % 83.5 of the participants (n=167) complained about lack of fitness equipments and % 98 of them (n=196) emphasized about the necessity of walking and jogging routes at the outdoor parks. As a whole, findings suggested that outdoor fitness parks had inadequate features in terms of usage, qualification and settlement plan