Objective:

To analyze the barriers that prevent the practice of physical exercise in university students belonging to undergraduate academic programs in the city of Manizales.

Materials and methods:

Study with a correlational quantitative approach with a sample of 2,576 undergraduate students from four universities in the city of Manizales. The Nola Pender exercise benefits and barriers scale (EBBS) was used for data collection.

Results:

The most reported barriers were related to tiredness (67.7%), fatigue (60.24%) and lack of time to perform physical exercise (48.91%). Thirteen barriers associated with academic programs were found, being the Fine Arts students those who were associated with a greater number of barriers.

Conclusion:

The Fine Arts area of study was associated with a greater perception of barriers while the Education and Agronomy students did not consider barriers to the practice of physical exercise. The study plans must include academic and/or recreational spaces that allow greater intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for the practice of sports according to the interests of the area of knowledge.

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