運(yùn)動(dòng)時(shí)微笑會(huì)發(fā)揮得更好？

Many athletes have been told that smiling while sweating will make our efforts feel easier. In May, Eliud Kipchoge, the Kenyan marathon runner, periodically grinned through the final miles of his fastest-ever marathon, which he completed in 2 hours 25 seconds; afterward, he said that he had hoped that the smiling would ease him to the finish line. But there has been little solid scientific evidence to support this idea. Several past studies have examined whether deliberately smiling can alter how people feel psychologically during races, but few have looked at the physiological impact on sports performance.

許多運(yùn)動(dòng)員都曾聽(tīng)說(shuō)，大汗淋漓時(shí)微笑一下能使我們費(fèi)勁做的事感覺(jué)更輕松。肯尼亞馬拉松運(yùn)動(dòng)員埃魯?shù)?middot;基普喬格(Eliud Kipchoge)在5月創(chuàng)下自己的最快記錄——2小時(shí)25秒，那場(chǎng)比賽的最后一段路程中，他時(shí)不時(shí)地露出微笑。賽后他表示，希望微笑能使自己更輕松地跑到終點(diǎn)。但是，目前尚沒(méi)有什么有力的科學(xué)依據(jù)可以證明這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)。過(guò)去曾有一些研究試圖了解刻意的微笑是否能調(diào)節(jié)人們?cè)谫惻軙r(shí)的心理感受，但幾乎沒(méi)有研究聚焦于微笑對(duì)于體育成績(jī)的生理影響。

For a new study published in September in Psychology of Sport and Exercise, researchers decided to gather a group of experienced recreational runners and have them alternately grin and grimace as they ran. The 24 volunteers, men and women, were not aware of the study’s purpose: They were told that the experiment would look at a variety of factors related to “running economy,” a measure of how much oxygen you use to stride at a given speed.

在《運(yùn)動(dòng)與訓(xùn)練心理學(xué)》(Psychology of Sport and Exercise)9月發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)新研究中，研究人員召集了一批有經(jīng)驗(yàn)的業(yè)余跑者，讓他們?cè)谂懿綍r(shí)交替作出微笑和扭曲的面部表情。24名志愿者都不知道此次研究的目的：他們被告知，本次試驗(yàn)將考察與“跑步效率”有關(guān)的因素，跑步效率以在一定速度跑步時(shí)，邁步所消耗的氧氣量來(lái)衡量。

First, the researchers tested the volunteers’ usual running economy by having them don a facial mask to measure their respiration and then run on a treadmill until they were exhausted. As they ran, the scientists asked them to rate how they felt and describe what strategies they were using to keep going.

首先，研究人員讓志愿者們帶上一個(gè)檢測(cè)呼吸的面具，要求他們?cè)谂懿綑C(jī)上跑步，直到力竭，以此來(lái)測(cè)試他們正常的跑步效率。研究人員要求他們?cè)谂懿綍r(shí)對(duì)自身的感受評(píng)級(jí)，并描述他們會(huì)使用何種策略來(lái)堅(jiān)持跑動(dòng)。

Then, on a separate lab visit, each volunteer completed a series of four six-minute runs, during which they were assigned four approaches: to smile continuously but sincerely, to frown, to relax their upper body by imagining they gently held a potato chip between loose fingers or, as a control, to use their normal attentional focus mental techniques.

接著，志愿者會(huì)進(jìn)入另一個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)室，各自完成四組6分鐘的跑步，在這次跑步中，他們會(huì)被分配到四種不同的方法：持續(xù)地、發(fā)自?xún)?nèi)心地微笑;皺眉;通過(guò)想象自己用放松的手指輕輕地拿著一片薯片來(lái)放松上半身;以及作為對(duì)照，要求他們用自己平時(shí)集中注意力的心理技巧。

There were variations in the results. A few runners were most economical when they frowned; the researchers speculate that their grimaces, like ferocious “game faces,” increased their determination to outdo their normal performance. But the runners turned out to be most economical when they smiled. Smiling probably aided economy by prompting a “reduction in muscular tension,” says Noel Brick, a lecturer in sport and exercise psychology at Ulster University, who led the study.

少數(shù)跑者在皺眉時(shí)效率最高，研究人員推測(cè)他們扭曲的面部表情——如兇狠的“比賽表情”——增加了他們超越平常發(fā)揮的決心。但試驗(yàn)結(jié)果表明，大多數(shù)跑者在微笑時(shí)的效率是最高的。該研究的領(lǐng)頭人、阿爾斯特大學(xué)(Ulster University)運(yùn)動(dòng)心理學(xué)講師諾埃爾·布里克(Noel Brick)認(rèn)為，微笑或許能通過(guò)促進(jìn)“減少肌肉緊張”來(lái)提高運(yùn)動(dòng)效率。

Many of the runners found it difficult to smile throughout the six-minute session, though: Their grins became increasingly fixed and unnatural. Such false smiles activate fewer facial muscles than the sincere version, Brick said, and most likely result in less relaxation and performance enhancements. So the key to using a happy smile to make you a better runner, he says, may be to grin sincerely and often near a race’s end, but in 30-second bursts, rather than continuously. “This is what Eliud Kipchoge seems to do,” Brick said.

不過(guò)，大多數(shù)的跑者發(fā)現(xiàn)，很難在整個(gè)6分鐘的時(shí)段內(nèi)一直保持微笑：他們的微笑會(huì)越來(lái)越僵硬、不自然。這樣的假笑比真心的微笑激活的面部肌肉更少，并且很可能導(dǎo)致不夠放松、對(duì)運(yùn)動(dòng)表現(xiàn)的改善不大。因此，布里克說(shuō)，通過(guò)微笑來(lái)成為一個(gè)更好的跑者，關(guān)鍵或許就在于真心地微笑，并且要在快跑到終點(diǎn)的最后30秒沖刺時(shí)微笑，而不是一直微笑。