{"id":41224,"date":"2016-09-23T14:46:13","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T18:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=41224"},"modified":"2017-07-04T16:17:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T20:17:12","slug":"new-brock-u-research-says-self-talk-determines-success-in-exercise-during-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2016\/09\/new-brock-u-research-says-self-talk-determines-success-in-exercise-during-heat\/","title":{"rendered":"New Brock U research says self-talk determines success in exercise during heat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The way you talk to yourself as you exercise in the heat will make or break your workout, says new Brock University research.<\/span><\/p>\n

While high temperatures do have an impact on brain, muscle and heart functions, what you tell yourself about the heat will determine how long you exercise, how hard you work, and how clearly you are able to think, says Stephen Cheung, professor in the Department of Kinesiology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shows that our thoughts really can drive our performance,\u201d says Cheung, who is Canada Research Chair in Environmental Ergonomics. \u201cIt continues the trend in research of being aware that it\u2019s not just a physiological kind of mechanism for why we fatigue, but that there is a strong psychological component to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheng and his graduate student Phillip Wallace instructed 18 cyclists and triathletes to pedal on stationary bikes at a constant speed for 25 minutes in 35-degree Celsius heat.<\/p>\n

Following a 30-minute rest, participants were then given three computer tasks to test their memory, reaction time, ability to detect errors, and other mental abilities.<\/p>\n

After completing those exercises, participants cycled on stationary bikes at a constant speed until they became exhausted, again in 35-degree Celsius heat.<\/p>\n

Next, Wallace and Cheung randomly spilt the group into two. Half of the participants attended a two-week motivational self-talk training session in which they made lists of negative statements from thoughts they experienced during their exercise, including \u201cIt\u2019s boiling in here \u2013 I\u2019m so hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The athletes then listed an equal number of positive statements and, for each exercise, chose five motivational self-talk statements such as \u201cKeep pushing, you\u2019re doing well,\u201d or \u201cI am focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other half of the participant group \u2013 the \u201ccontrol group\u201d \u2013 did not undergo self-talk training.<\/p>\n

The two groups repeated the previous experiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe group with the motivational skills training \u2013 who were just as hot, just as uncomfortable as the control group \u2013 were willing to extend the time that they were in those last stages of tolerance,\u201d says Cheung.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not as if, by performing motivational self-talk, I don\u2019t hurt as much,\u201d Cheung explains. \u201cIt\u2019s more like, I\u2019m willing to push through and continue exercising for longer at that same very, very hard effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants using their positive thoughts cycled three minutes or more longer than they did before their training.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose in the control group, when they got hot, felt the work was very hard, and they stopped fairly soon after,\u201d says Cheung, adding that their performance was a bit lower than in the first round.<\/p>\n

Likewise, participants who underwent the motivational self-talk training session performed better at the computer tasks than their control counterparts.<\/p>\n

Cheung says that what\u2019s different from previous studies is that his team focused on the impact of one psychological factor, self-talk, rather than including a range of psychological strategies like goal-setting, increasing one\u2019s alertness, dealing with stress.<\/p>\n

He says including the computer tests to measure cognitive ability is also new.<\/p>\n

The results can also apply to firefighters, miners and others who work in hot environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can train themselves to re-assess how hot they are and really use mental and motivational skills training to counteract the discomfort they feel,\u201d says Cheung. \u201cThey should be able to use it just as effectively as an athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s paper, \u201cEffects of Motivational Self-Talk on Endurance and Cognitive Performance in the Heat\u201d<\/strong><\/a> (LINK) was published recently in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.<\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program provided funding for the team\u2019s research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The way you talk to yourself as you exercise in the heat will make or break your workout, says new Brock University research.
\nWhile high temperatures do have an impact on brain, muscle and heart functions, what you tell yourself about the heat will determine how long you exercise, how hard you work, and how clearly you are able to think, says Stephen Cheung, professor in the Department of Kinesiology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":41240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,3319,4052,1,5],"tags":[5505,15,541,3325,2998],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41241,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41224\/revisions\/41241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}