Attentional focus in the gym... does it matter?

You are at the bar, about to lift. We check our feet position, our hand position, our body/posture position…. but when was the last time before a big lift you checked your eye position, your focus of attention? I am guessing, you haven’t because it doesn’t matter where you are looking, or where you focus of attention is… right? Wrong!

When you lift/complete the movement you have two options, and most of the time you won’t even realise which one you are using. You can either have an internal focus or an external focus. The internal focus means that you are focusing on the internal processes of the body (position of feet, pressure), the actual movement such as the leg extension/contraction in a squat. Whereas the external focus means you are focusing on the surroundings or objects such as the implement, in a deadlift this could the bar.

But why does this matter? Research over the years has shown that our focus of attention can impact a number of performance markers such as muscle endurance (increased repetitions using 75% of 1RM, decreased time in cycling time trials), force production (Isometric and Isokinetic), cardiovascular responses, and movement effectiveness (such as balance, accuracy and speed). It has been shown that all markers improve with external focus, with mechanisms such as increased motor unit recruitment (better efficiency within the muscle) and more efficient co-contractions (between muscles).

The theory behind this, is that internal focus may cause what is known as re-investment which in its simplest terms means that we return back to earlier stages of learning the movement where our conscious mind tries to control every aspect of the movement. This can allow errors and mistakes to occur due to the slower processing of information as we lose the ability of the automatic process due to ‘thinking’ about the movement. As a result of this, external focus can improve both the immediate performance such as lifting more weight but can also help with the learning process when learning a new lifting technique.

As an added note recent research has found that the further away your focus of attentional (external focus – away from your body), the better the effects of the technique.

A word of warning, external focusing should be practiced during training lifts as it may take time to master. When next stepping up to the bar, purposely focus your attention on an external focus, the bar or even better an object in the distance, keep doing this until it becomes natural, and your normal process for lifting.

So, the next time you are going for a PB, where is your focus of attention.