Tired Mind May Find It Hard to Focus on Physical Exercise

Does mental fatigue affect exercise performance? Mental fatigue has a negative effect on technical and decision-making skills in physical performance.

If you have a hard time getting through the exercise routine after a stressful day at the office, you are not alone. A new study shows that mental fatigue induced by cognitive load, alone or intermixed with physical load, increased exertion during weight lifting and training, and impaired subsequent cycling performance.

Mental fatigue is a state of tiredness that sets in when your brain’s energy levels are depleted. It is usually the result of prolonged stress brought on by a variety of factors, including a challenging life event, a demanding job, or procrastination.

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‘Mental fatigue caused by prolonged exertion has the potential to reduce cognitive and physical exercise performance.’

Many studies have verified that there is an interaction between physical activities and mental fatigue. However, few studies are focused on the effect of mental fatigue on physical performance.

Mental Fatigue Can Make Exercise Harder

Researchers at the University of Birmingham’s School of Sport, Exercise, and Rehabilitation Sciences, measured the effects of cognitive tasks on a group of 16 men and women to examine what happened to their perception of Physical exertion. Their results showed that mentally fatigued participants had an increased sense of exertion during physical exercise.

The findings published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, suggest that taking the effects of mental fatigue into account during training may help athletes perform better.

In light of their findings, researchers recommend coaches reduce athletes’ exposure to mentally challenging tasks, such as smartphone use, before and during training and competitions. Longer term, they should consider ‘brain endurance training’ to increase resilience to mental fatigue.

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Cost of Cognitive Loading on Weight Lifting, Resistance Training, and Cycling Performance

It is known that the brain plays a part in physical performance, but the specific effects of mental fatigue have not been well understood. Athletes will often be browsing on their smartphones in rest between competing and training.

All of that requires mental effort and our results strongly suggest that athletes and coaches need to better understand the effects of these activities on overall performance. During the tests, participants completed a 90-minute mental task that involved identifying letter sequences on a screen.

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They then completed a series of weight-lifting repetitions. A control group watched neutral videos before taking part in the physical task. In a second experiment, participants completed a series of resistance training exercises, followed by a 20-minute cycling time trial.

They performed cognitive tasks before and between the exercises with a control group again watching a neutral video. After the cognitive tasks participants took an online test to confirm levels of fatigue.

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In each experiment, researchers recorded an increase in perceived exertion – how hard it felt to perform the task – among the mentally fatigued participants. In the second experiment, the researchers also noticed a reduced power in the cycling time trial, and less distance covered among the mentally fatigued participants.

The research team has already started to test the links between mental fatigue and performance among groups of elite athletes in ‘real world’ exercise scenarios.

Source-Eurekalert