Weird and wonderful strategies for improving exercise performance
Swearing
Swearing! That’s right, our parents aren’t right about everything! Swearing has all sorts of good effects. Studies show positive physical, psychological, and social effects that simply aren’t found with polite language. Specifically, when it comes to exercise, swearing seems to increase pain tolerance, increase power output in anaerobic testing, and improve grip strength. The authors of the review recommend not doing it too frequently though, it might lose its power if we get too used to it. We would also advise against trying this one in a crowded gym at 5pm…
Verdict: Weird and wonderful
Brain endurance training
Mental fatigue is pretty detrimental for exercising. Motivation goes down, performance suffers, and it can become a big barrier when you need to push through a tough workout. Good news though, you can train your brain to become less fatigued during exercise and this will have a knock-on effect for boosting your endurance workouts. Participants who did brain training before their endurance training saw double the improvement of the group that only completed physical training (12% vs 24%).
If you want to give this a go at home look up an online Stroop test and give it a go for a few weeks. Alternatively, regular meditators have shown to have a higher threshold for exhaustion. Even better, studies show that meditation can help runners “get in the zone” better, making the run feel even more effortless.
Verdict: Weird and wonderful
Social competition
It seems intuitive that this is true but there are some nuances to it. There are two main ways that exercise performance improves in a social context. The first is through competition and the second is encouragement. Studies that have people competing against one another show much higher attendance in groups where people can see their individual score and their opponents’ as opposed to when they are working towards a total team score.
Encouragement also seems to be a powerful tool for both short and long bouts of exercise, one study looked at static biking and found that having someone to encourage you was enough to boost power output in both sprint and endurance conditions. The improvements were modest but who doesn’t want to be cheered along on a ride?
Verdict: Wonderful
Smelling salts
Smelling salts conjure up the image of heavy lifts in the gym with lots of shouting and screaming but in reality the evidence seems to suggest this is where they are the least effective. CrossFit, Hyrox, and HIIT is where they really shine. These all require repetitive bouts of high intensity and the evidence shows that people get a good performance boost from using smelling salts prior to workouts. This isn’t to say that they aren’t good for lifting in the gym, they improve perception of performance for heavy lifting which in itself could be worthwhile, but that seems to be where the improvement ends.
Verdict: Mostly weird, sometimes wonderful
References
Bender & Popkin. Ammonia Inhalants: Use, Misuse, and Role in Sports Performance. Sports Health. 2024.
Dallaway et al., Prior brain endurance training improves endurance exercise performance. Eur J Sport Sci. 2023.
Edwards et al., Impact of active and passive social facilitation on self-paced endurance and sprint exercise: encouragement augments performance and motivation to exercise. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2018.
Nien et al., Athletes with meditation experience counteract the detrimental effect of mental fatigue on endurance performance and neurocognitive functions. Journal of Sports Sciences. 2024.
Washmuth et al., Effect of swearing on physical performance: a mini-review. Front Psychol. 2024
Zhang et al., Support or competition? How online social networks increase physical activity: A randomized controlled trial. Prev Med Rep. 2016.
