The Ergogenic Effect of 'F*ck', 'Sh*t' & Co: Swearing Boosts Physical Power (+5%, Wingate) & Muscular Strength (Grip)
In case you wondered why 'that guy' at the gym, today, kept swearing despite the critical glances of the rest of the gym members? Well, he has probably read the SuppVersity article at hand before everyone else and decided to put performance before decency, bro ;-) It may sound odd and unlikely, but eventually the hypothesis Richard Stephens and colleagues came up with is logical: "Given the links between swearing, sympathetic activation and the subsequent release of epinephrine and nor-epinephrine, [it is possible that] swearing can affect physical performance via similar changes in organismic milieu" (Stephens 2017). The corresponding paper that has been published recently and ahead of print in Psychology of Sport and Exercise examines two scenarios where this might be expected. In Experiment #1 a well-known high-intensity 30s anaerobic cycling power challenge known as the Wingate Anaerobic Power Test (WAnT) was applied (Bar-Or, 1987) while in Experiment #2 a