[HN Gopher] The Effects of an External Focus of Attention on Run...
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The Effects of an External Focus of Attention on Running Economy
Author : wallflower
Score : 39 points
Date : 2021-10-28 19:11 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (journals.humankinetics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (journals.humankinetics.com)
| strogonoff wrote:
| > Our findings revealed when participants adopted a dissociative-
| external focus of attention, they consumed less oxygen, had lower
| blood lactate, and a lower rating of perceived exertion compared
| with trials completed using an associative attention strategy.
| The findings of this study demonstrate that running economy is
| improved and feelings of fatigue are lowest when using a
| combination of a dissociative-external focus of attention.
|
| I'm not sure how certain can we be on where participants actually
| focused their attention, as it's hard (impossible?) to measure.
| Separately from that, I believe the exact location of
| associative-internal focus matters.
|
| For example, the experimenters used this method to trigger
| associative-internal focus:
|
| > the examiner repeated the phrase "Focus on the muscles in your
| feet" during the running action.
|
| I suspect that:
|
| -- It's possible to hear this phrase without actually directing
| the focus anywhere.
|
| -- Engaging verbal mechanism could actually be counter-
| productive, if it triggers inner monologue and keeps part of the
| attention in one's head so to speak.
|
| -- Focusing on the muscles in the feet might not be conducive to
| good running form. Could that focus lead to tensing up of those
| muscles? I generally attempt to engage the core and keep the
| extremities relaxed. That said, I don't have the relevant
| expertise and am willing to be corrected.
|
| Anecdotally, I noticed that external focus of attention sometimes
| makes physical effort easier _in the moment_ but does not
| necessarily help maintain good form (unless it's already well-
| developed enough to be maintained automatically, which isn't a
| given considering participant selection method), while what seems
| to be referred to as "associative-internal focus of attention"
| IMO takes some time and effort but, used appropriately, helps
| maintain good form and aligns with economy over long time
| periods.
| mckirk wrote:
| > The findings of this study demonstrate that running economy is
| improved and feelings of fatigue are lowest when using a
| combination of a dissociative-external focus of attention.
|
| So, optimal training would be chasing your Ketamine dealer?
| poorjohnmacafee wrote:
| Working out or running purely for exercise are contrived from an
| evolutionary perspective. For millions of years of the homo genus
| we only ran or exercised because it was in the context of a
| useful task, like getting dinner, clearing land, or being
| playful. In these forms of running or weight lifting your mind
| would have only been focused externally on the tasks it's
| connected to.
|
| Does it make it difference? Since mind and body are
| interconnected, of course it does.
|
| I'm weird but I do sometimes run and imagine I'm actually
| persistence hunting an antelope, and that some hypothetical tribe
| would be thrilled to have it. It does supply a boost of energy
| and makes the run easier. Evolution hacking I suppose.
| craigr1972 wrote:
| I find that when I remember, and remember to keep on focusing on
| a visual metaphor I have for running form and economy the
| perceived effort doesn't change but suddenly you're going 1 or 2
| minutes per mile faster. It's absolutely magic.
| qnsi wrote:
| To be honest I was thinking this would be about economics
| yissp wrote:
| I suppose the body is an economy in some sense. It's all about
| allocation of finite resources.
| mistermann wrote:
| The focusing of the public's attention with respect to the
| economy, the environment, each other, etc would make for an
| interesting and maybe even useful study.
| joko42 wrote:
| So you run farther when you focus on the trees rather than on how
| your body feels.
| klyrs wrote:
| If by "focus on the trees" you mean "ingest a legal THC
| product" then this does agree with my experience.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| Might be why the "fartlek" workout has been a fixture in
| running plans for decades. In Swedish it means speedplay and
| the original structure of the workout was there is no
| structure. Start running, spot a landmark like a pole, run hard
| to it, jog until you see another one like a tree, run hard to
| it, and repeat. This research might suggest this type of
| activity let's athletes run harder than they normally would.
|
| Nowadays many coaches prescribe timed intervals to structure
| the fatlek, so the original idea behind it has kinda been lost
| though. In fact, timed workouts actually have the opposite
| effect where athletes perform worse at the same rate of
| perceived effort than distance based workouts.
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