Despite the awareness of physical exercise’s benefits is wi- dely diffused, a large part of the older population remains sedentary. This study aimed to identify the main barriers that prevent elderly to be physi- cally active so they can be overcome in order to increase the engagement of this population in existing physical activity (PA) programs. METHODS The study sample consisted of 19 sedentary elderly subjects of both sexes (67.5±4.58 years) living in the city of Bragança, Portugal. The questionnaire on Perceived Barriers was used. Descriptive statistics were performed to calculate the mean and standard deviation of scores for each answer and each group of answers. RESULTS The main group of barriers to PA was the psycho-motivational group (3.00±0.21) and the least important group of barriers was the psycho-personal group (3.80±0.21). CONCLUSIONS The least important barriers described in this study, combined with the fact that there are PA programs focused in the elderly population in the city of Bragança, leads to the conclusion that the high prevalence of sedentary elderly is not due to supply but to demand, more specifically the elderly’s psycho-motivational barriers, translated into lack of free will to be physically active.
