The effects of fitness level and varying attentional focus on health-related musculoskeletal fitness performance

Abstract

Instructing individuals to adopt an external attentional focus (focusing attention away from the body) yields a performance advantage on appraisals of health-related physical fitness, while an internal focus (focusing attention on the body’s movement) is shown to hinder performance. However, the effects of varying attentional focus on performance of individuals at different levels of health-related fitness are unknown. This investigation examined the effect of fitness and attentional focus on performance during select appraisals of health-related musculoskeletal fitness. Twelve high fit and twelve low fit individuals completed four musculoskeletal fitness tests (grip strength, push-ups, sit-and-reach, and vertical jump) on three different days, each separated by one week. On Day 1, no attentional focus was specified. On Days 2 and 3, participants were asked to adopt an external focus or an internal focus in randomized order. Findings revealed an interaction effect for grip strength, vertical jump, and push-ups. Superior performance was demonstrated in both the external and no focus conditions for high fit versus an internal focus. For low fit, an external focus resulted in significantly better performance compared to no focus and an internal focus. For sit-and-reach, an external focus resulted in superior performance across all participants versus no focus and an internal focus; no focus was also superior to an internal focus. These results provide further evidence for the importance of utilizing verbal instructions that incorporate an external focus of attention rather then using internal focus instructions for optimal performance on appraisals of physical fitness across varying levels of fitness.