Not sure if anyone else has heard this, or if it’s been shared here or not. I was reading the book “Endure” about endurance sports, and the author claimed there was a study where they showed a quick flash, subliminal image of a happy face to people during a cycling performance test and that group saw a 12% increase in performance.
If this is something that is real and studied, could this be beneficial for trainer road to implement in their software to help finish workouts strong? What other uses could there be for this?
I’ve always wondered what workout compliance would be if you’re watching a comedy vs watching a drama or action. Curious if laughing could give the same boost.
IDK about subliminal messages, but I find keeping a neutral face or even forcing a bit of smile helps during very hard efforts. At least it helps me feel better if not go faster.
Makes sense to me, guys have been taping pictures on their stem for a long time now and the opposite seems to be true as well, if your thoughts get too negative thinking about defeat and failure it makes suffering less tolerable. Personally I maintain the idea that cortisol levels play a role in top ends of exercise, it’s an idea that I had heard presented by attia effectively describing how inpatients who are very sick have rising levels of lactate and cortisol just like elite athletes. Both of these rising out of control are bad for both groups.
A happy image on the stem likely influences cortisol levels.
In the old days of ramp tests there was a thread about music and particular playlists that peaked at 20 minutes (or whichever time we thought ftp increases were triggered).
So I guess that anything that positively distracts from negative feedback would help?
I know that I find tougher intervals much more inspiring with action films. A car chase or some explosions helps. Mad Max Fury Road for example, although that’s just one long car chase really. In fact one of favourites is a long way into Interstellar when a spaceship has to match a particular rotation speed to allow docking, and one of the characters says ‘match my spin’ or words similar.
12% is a lot… so probably not that much… but a teammate in college was smiling during his 10k race in which he demolished his PR. First thought was, he must be feeling good. Second was, who smiles in a 10k?
An Emoji is like a little picture, and is what we generally see in our posts (like or ), whereas an emoticon is just a series of characters that (sort of) make up a figure (like “;-)” or “:-(”, if you remove the quotation marks, which I can’t do on this forum without them being converted into an Emoji. ).
I’ve been thinking about this a bit today and, if there’s any real validity to this proposition (even if not 12%), I’m thinking I might start putting smiley face stickers all over the place. The world seems pretty down right now (some parts definitely more than others), but pepping people up might be a good start to getting things back on a better path.
I psychotically carved “SMILE” in my seatpost collar a few years ago when I was training for a long distance event. I was surprised how often I’d read it during a difficult climb or interval, and it would always reset my focus. I’ll buy the 12% improvement—it helps.
or 
), whereas an emoticon is just a series of characters that (sort of) make up a figure (like “;-)” or “:-(”, if you remove the quotation marks, which I can’t do on this forum without them being converted into an Emoji. 
it ruins compliance for me.