Self-Talk

One of the reasons I love reading research - it provides evidence for AND against what may hear and read on a daily basis.  But that's not to say that a peer-reviewed article is gospel - which happens a lot in the media. It's one piece of the puzzle and it's important to review it with a critical eye and acknowledge the limitations. I believe that sport and performance psychology consultants, coaches as well as therapists must be able to say there is evidence for what we do works.  Also, I think it's important for the practitioner to be transparent in what they do.

The long road ahead…around mile 170 in the Moab 240 Ultra Run

One quick gander through books and social media will show you that elite athletes have used self-talk and mantra's and 'power statements' to maintain and increase performance during an event. But what does the research say? 

A recent study by Hatzigeorgiadis et al. (2018) examined the utlization of a self-talk intervention on endurance performance - in the heat. The researchers had 16-participants ride a cycling ergometer in a heated, humid room. Eight participants were in a control group, eight in the self-talk intervention. The participants in the self-talk intervention were coached on using motivational self-talk, and cued to use it every two minutes. Specifically they were told to use language like "Let's go," "Come on," "Keep going," "Stronger," and "Hold on." This differs from Instructional self-talk which may include things that are instructional for the cyclists like "relaxed hips," "loose shoulders," and "flat back." 

The researchers found that those in the self-talk intervention produced significantly greater power than the control group after the first third of the experimental trial. Also, an interesting and significant result appeared - oxygen consumption decreased for the control group, whereas it remained stable for the self-talk group, this corresponded with the power output. 

There are some obvious limitations - there were only 16 participants in the study, those participants were exercise science students and not professional athletes, and there was no baseline assessment in similar conditions. In other words would the subjects in the self-talk trial performed better regardless? Also, motivation wasn't assessed. It is possible that those in the self-talk group were highly motivated. All possibilities and things to consider. 

Another interesting thing to consider, and was not evaluated was how much did the athletes 'believe' the motivational statements?  It's one thing to say it, but it's another to get to the point of believing it.

Several additional points to consider - for each of is it's individual, what works for one, may not work for another for a multitude of reasons. For some (and in different situations) instructional self-talk may be better. Additionally, I beieve that no matter what - practice is important. Learning about self-talk two days before a race is one thing, practicing with it each and every time you go out to train integrates it into your consciousness.

Personally, I've used motivational statements often enough in races to believe that they work for me.  To remind myself in the later stages of an ultra event I may even right them down on pieces of paper in my drop bag, write them on my hand and instruct my crew and pacers to share them with me.

How do you use self-talk? What's worked for you? What hasn't? Do you use it at all? Feel free to share in the comments!

Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis, Khelifa Bartura, Christos Argiropoulos, Nikos Comoutos, Evangelos Galanis & Andreas D. Flouris (2018). Beat the Heat: Effects of a Motivational Self-Talk Intervention on Endurance Performance. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 30:4, 388-401,DOI: 10.1080/10413200.2017.1395930