Is exercise strenuous for you? Try a sports product you believe in

For many people the very thought of exercise puts them off.

They believe that exercising is almost like hard work and for this reason they pass up on exercising.

But scientists from the Department of Sport Science at the University of Freiburg discovered that it is your own expectations which influence how strenuous you think exercise or a particular sport is.

The belief that the compression garment will help them enhance their physical activity helped the ones who considered themselves less athletic and it lowered their perception of strenuousness during exercise.

28 men and women between the ages of 18 and 32 were asked to ride a stationary bicycle-ergometer for 30 minutes in a laboratory setting.

Beforehand they were randomly assigned to 1 of the 4 conditions and they watched corresponding film clip presenting “scientific evidence” that the exercise would or would not result in health benefits. They were also given compression garments to wear and were shown in the film that the garment they were wearing would either enhance exercise benefits while cycling or they would be worn for control purposes and make the participants sweat.

The participants also reported their assessment of how athletic they were via a questionnaire.

What the participants did not know is that the films clips were shown with the purpose of influencing their expectations before the cycling sessions began.

The results showed that participants who started off with a positive attitude found the cycling session to be less strenuous. The more athletic the participants perceived themselves to be the less strenuous were the sessions for them.

But positive attitudes did not help everyone. The ones who perceived themselves to be less athletic found the training unit strenuous anyway.

Participants who considered themselves to be athletic were not affected but those who said they were not good at sports perceived greater exertion levels.

The belief that the compression garment will help them enhance their physical activity helped the ones who considered themselves less athletic and it lowered their perception of strenuousness during exercise.

The study shows us that how we feel about ourselves and our athletic abilities plays a big role in how much exertion we feel during exercise.

But if the right product is given to us with the belief that it will help us– like the compression garment – then we may find exercise and sport to be pleasant activities.

Source: PLOS ONE