Because of the health crises in the United States, there is a need to better understand exercise patterns and how they are developed and maintained. Many scholars have suggested that an individual's concept of self is composed of numerous identities. As role identities motivate behavior consistent with the identity, role-identity salience may predict future exercise behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between exercise identity, stage of exercise, and total number of exercise sessions, over 12 weeks, among three groups of exercisers (group fitness, personal coaching, and self-controlled exercisers).;Two waves of data collection, separated by 12 weeks, were performed with members of a fitness center located in a rural community in the Midwest. Attrition rate was 21% resulting in a final sample of 89 participants. Ninety-five percent of the survey participants self-identified as Caucasian and 75% were female. Average age was 52 years. Stage of exercise behavior was assessed using a five-item instrument related to regular exercise behavior and intentions (Marcus, Selby, Niaura & Rossi, 1992). Exercise Identity was measured by the sum of nine Likert-type items (Anderson & Cychosz, 1994) designed to measure the extent to which exercise was descriptive of the concept of self (alpha = .93).;A one-way MANCOVA tested the effects of participant group upon participant's total number of exercise sessions over 12-weeks and post program exercise identity score, controlling for initial exercise identity score. The combined dependent variables were significantly related to the covariate of initial exercise identity score F(2,81) = 66.11, p < .001, but after adjustments for the covariate, results indicated that there was no statistically significant participant group effect F (4,162) = 1.77, p = 0.14. Univariate tests indicated that both of the dependent variables were significantly related with the covariate. A one-way MANCOVA was also utilized to test for effects of initial stage of exercise upon participant's total number of exercise sessions over the 12-week program and post-program exercise identity score, while controlling for initial level of exercise identity score. After controlling for the covariate, results indicated that there was no statistically significant exercise stage effect F(4,162) = 1.77, p = .14. These data suggest that merely exercising may not be enough or that a 12-week program may not be long enough to produce significant changes in exercise identity.