Psychological Determinants of Whole-Body Endurance Performance

Abstract

BackgroundNo literature reviews have systematically identified and evaluated research on the psychological determinants of endurance performance, and sport psychology performance enhancement guidelines for endurance sports are not founded on a systematic appraisal of endurance-specific research.ObjectiveA systematic literature review was conducted to identify practical psychological interventions that improve endurance performance and to identify additional psychological factors that affect endurance performance. Additional objectives were to evaluate the research practices of the included studies, to suggest theoretical and applied implications, and to guide future research.MethodsElectronic databases, forward-citation searches and manual searches of reference lists were used to locate relevant studies. Peer-reviewed studies were included when they chose an experimental or quasi-experimental research design; a psychological manipulation; endurance performance as the dependent variable; and athletes or physically active, healthy adults as participants.ResultsConsistent support was found for using imagery, self-talk and goal setting to improve endurance performance, but it is unclear whether learning multiple psychological skills is more beneficial than learning one psychological skill. The results also demonstrated that mental fatigue undermines endurance performance, and verbal encouragement and head-to-head competition can have a beneficial effect. Interventions that influenced perception of effort consistently affected endurance performance.ConclusionsPsychological skills training could benefit an endurance athlete. Researchers are encouraged to compare different practical psychological interventions, to examine the effects of these interventions for athletes in competition and to include a placebo control condition or an alternative control treatment. Researchers are also encouraged to explore additional psychological factors that could have a negative effect on endurance performance. Future research should include psychological mediating variables and moderating variables. Implications for theoretical explanations for endurance performance and evidence-based practice are described.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40279-015-0319-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Effects of a Motivational Self-Talk Intervention for Endurance Athletes Completing an Ultramarathon

“…research on psychological interventions for endurance performance has been conducted (McCormick et al, 2015). It is important that endurance athletes can cope with these stressors, as they could elicit a potentially debilitative emotional response (e.g., Martinent & Ferrand, 2009) and increase the demands of the situation compared to non-competitive environments.…”

“…Although research has shed light on the experiences of ultramarathon runners and the coping strategies ultramarathon runners use (Acevedo, Dzewaltowski, Gill, & Noble, 1992;Antonini Philippe et al, 2016;Holt et al, 2014;Simpson et al, 2014), no published studies have examined the effects of PST on performance in an ultramarathon. Further, no studies have examined the effects of PST on performance in longdistance running events of at least half-marathon distance (McCormick et al, 2015).…”

“…The third aim was to determine whether participants were still using self-talk six months after receiving the intervention, as well as the functions of this self-talk, which could indicate whether they found learning self-talk valuable. Studies examining the effects of PST on endurance performance have not reported whether participants continued to use the taught intervention after they finished their commitment to the research (McCormick et al, 2015). The final aim was to highlight psychological aspects of participating in an ultramarathon, such as pre-event and post-event emotions, encountered stressors, and the intensities of perceived effort, exerciseinduced muscle pain, and injury pain experienced over the course of an ultramarathon.…”

Fatigue and Exhaustion in Hypoxia: The Role of Cerebral Oxygenation

“…It is conceivable that hypoxia could alter brain processes involved in motivation, both directly and indirectly [e.g., through altered perception of dyspnea (De Peuter et al, 2004;Weinberger and Abu-Hasan, 2009;Aliverti et al, 2011)], which could account for some of the detriments in performance. There is no denying that motivation and mental fatigue play a large part in sporting performances (Marcora et al, 2009;McCormick et al, 2015). Implementing sensitive psychological measurements will improve understanding of the effect of hypoxia on psychological and cognitive functions, thus providing further insight to the mechanisms behind the performance detriments observed during exercise in hypoxia.…”

Modelling the process of falling behind and its psychophysiological consequences

“…A recent review highlighted cause–effect relationships between psychological factors and endurance performance that are both facilitative (eg, a head-to-head competition) and debilitative (eg, mental fatigue) 1. Since little is known about the psychological mechanisms underpinning the observed performance improvements and decrements, the authors encouraged researchers to: (A) explore additional psychological factors, other than motivation and effort, that could have an effect on endurance performance, specifically those that can have negative effects, (B) include psychological mediating (ie, answering hypotheses of ‘how’ and ‘why’) and moderating (ie, answering hypotheses of ‘for whom’ and ‘when’) variables and (C) use psychological theories to determine which factors should be targeted and measured in experimental designs.…”