Swearing Could Boost Physical Performance at the Gym, Study Finds

The gym could soon become rather more profanity-filled, thanks to science. A new study strengthens the expanding evidence that swearing may help people access their inner strength and improve physical performance, apparently by enabling them to overcome certain psychological barriers.

Swearing and physical performance

"In many situations, people hold themselves back – consciously or unconsciously – from using their full strength," says psychology researcher Richard Stephens of Keele University in the UK.

"Swearing is an easily available way to help yourself feel focused, confident, and less distracted, and 'go for it' a little more."

Stephens and colleagues from Keele and the University of Alabama set out to establish not only whether swearing could boost physical performance, as earlier research had indicated, but also whether it works by altering a person's immediate psychology - particularly their ability to shed inhibitions.

For the first experiment, researchers recruited 88 participants aged between 18 and 65 from a university campus. All were sufficiently fit to undertake physical exertion.

Each person chose two words following these prompts: one swear word they might say after banging their head, and one neutral word they could use to describe a table.

They then performed a chair push-up. This involved sitting on a chair, gripping either side of the seat and lifting their full body weight with their arms, so that both their bottom left the chair and their feet left the floor.

"During the chair push-up task, participants were required to repeat their self-select word – either the swear word or neutral word, depending on randomization," the researchers explain.

Participants maintained the position for as long as they could, for a maximum of 60 seconds, while keeping eye contact throughout with the researcher conducting the experiment via Microsoft Teams.

Testing inhibition and psychological state

Once the task was complete, every participant responded to a set of questions designed to assess state disinhibition - in other words, how unconstrained by consequences they felt.

The measures that researchers expected to be higher in the swear-word sessions than in the neutral-word sessions covered humour, psychological flow, self-confidence, social desirability and distraction.

A separate group of 94 participants, recruited in the same way, completed a second experiment that repeated the full procedure.

The researchers examined the same measures, while also adding several factors they believed might be lower during swear-word sessions: bystander apathy, behavioural inhibition system, cognitive anxiety and negative emotion.

Longer chair push-ups while swearing

Results from both experiments indicated that swearing provides a physical-performance benefit: participants held the chair push-up for longer when repeating their foul-mouthed mantras.

Positive emotion, humour, distraction and novelty also received higher scores in the swearing tests. This indicates that using a favourite four-letter word could help people move into more action-oriented states and potentially enjoy their workout more.

"These findings suggest that swearing promotes psychological states conducive to maximizing effort and overcoming internal constraints," Stephens and team conclude.

However, the findings did not provide quite enough evidence to show that swearing specifically changes people's inhibitions. Further research - involving many more profanities - will be needed to support or challenge that hypothesis.

"These findings help explain why swearing is so commonplace," says Stephens.

"Swearing is literally a calorie-neutral, drug-free, low-cost, readily available tool at our disposal for when we need a boost in performance."

The research is published in American Psychologist.