Why people talk to themselves during exercise

In a recent experiment at COBE Lab, researcher Johanne Nedergaard investigated whether talking to oneself during strenuous exercise helps people to push themselves and perform. Her experiment sheds light on the function of our inner voice.

Most people think in words and have an inner dialogue, which they use in their day-to-day thinking. During difficult or exhausting tasks, many use their inner voice to motivate themselves. “Come on, you can do it!” or “Don’t give up now!” are some of the things people may say to themselves while working out, for instance.

Johanne wanted to investigate whether this inner monologue helps people to push themselves further.

Experimental procedure

51 participants were asked to cycle intensively on an exercise bike for 12 rounds of one minute, each separated by a one-minute break. However, for some of the rounds they were also given additional tasks that were supposed to hinder them to varying degrees in using their inner voice to motivate themselves.

Either participants were asked to remember a sequence of letters and numbers or a series of locations on a grid. Johanne expected that the verbal memory task—that is, having to remember a sequence of letters and numbers—would most hinder people in making use of their inner voice.

Findings

Participants performed significantly worse when prevented by their tasks from talking to themselves, cycling a shorter distance during their one-minute rounds. Moreover, they did slightly worse when they had to remember a sequence of letters and numbers than when they had to remember a series of locations. In other words, Johanne found evidence that using one’s inner voice for motivation during exercise may in fact help people to perform better. In a follow-up experiment using different tasks for distraction, Johanne found the same pattern with even more pronounced differences.

So by all means: keep talking to yourself to boost your workout!

The study is called “Mind over Body: Investigating Cognitive Control of Cycling Performance with Dual-Task Interference” and was presented at a conference in 2021.