How long you can keep running – or any other endurance sport – depends not only on your condition, but also how you feel. Some workouts are a bit harder mentally than others.
Effort =harder training
How much effort you have to put in before your training largely determines how tough you find it afterwards. The less effort you feel you have put in, the easier the training seems.
How difficult or easy a workout is for you depends on all kinds of factors:have you had a long day, are you worrying, are you in a good mood or are you arguing? You can't control much of it, but research shows that you can fake a little.
Smiling helps
Three groups of runners were studied during training. One group frowned while running, while the other group ran with a smile on their face and a final group ran as usual. At the same time, the runners' breathing was monitored.
The surprising result:runners who had a smile on their face were found to be the most efficient with their energy and that actually led to an improvement in performance. The training is experienced as easier afterwards. A frown on your face, on the other hand, would make you experience the training as harder.
How do you improve your performance with this? Laughing a little more often while running won't hurt. That way you are relaxed and that will make it all a little easier. Unfortunately, there are many questions that the research does not answer:does it also help in other sports? And how long should we really keep smiling? For now, at least we have a good reason to give passers-by a friendly smile.
