Review of Self-Talk on Endurance Sports Performance

Phua, Xin Hung (2021) Review of Self-Talk on Endurance Sports Performance. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Endurance sports performance refers to the ability of the body to sustain prolonged continuous effort for 75 seconds or longer duration. Implementation of self-talk methods such as motivational/positive self-talk, instructional self-talk, negative self-talk, challenging self-talk and neutral self-talk were commonly used to enhance endurance sports performance, however the effectiveness of self-talk towards endurance performance is inconclusive. In addition, the effects of self-talk on levels of endurance individuals are still inconclusive. The purpose of this systematic review is to understand the effects of self-talk on endurance performance. Studies were retrieved from several search engines such as PubMed, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, ResearchGate and ProQuest, which tested on self-talk and endurance sports. Endurance sport performance variables that were looked into were time-trial performance, rate of perceived exertion (RPE), time to exhaustion and distance covered. 26 studies were identified from 4 databases and there is a total number of 754 participants, age range between 13 to 50 years old. There are few levels of athletes involved in this study such as student/collegiate, recreationally active, recreationally trained, competitively trained, amateur and elite athletes that are involved in endurance sports. 19 out of 26 studies found out that there is a significant improvement in endurance sport performance aspects such as enhance time-trial performance, prolonged time to exhaustion, control and lower rate of perceived exertion and increase total distance cover with the implementation of self-talk technique. However, the effectiveness of self-talk towards elite or amateur athletes and which type of self-talk is more beneficial in endurance sports performance is inconclusive. There is a possibility that improvement in endurance sports performance is not due to the effect of self-talk as some studies are implementing several types of psychological skill training (PST) as part of the intervention program.