運動時微笑會發(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.

許多運動員都曾聽說，大汗淋漓時微笑一下能使我們費勁做的事感覺更輕松?？夏醽嗰R拉松運動員埃魯?shù)?middot;基普喬格(Eliud Kipchoge)在5月創(chuàng)下自己的最快記錄——2小時25秒，那場比賽的最后一段路程中，他時不時地露出微笑。賽后他表示，希望微笑能使自己更輕松地跑到終點。但是，目前尚沒有什么有力的科學依據(jù)可以證明這個觀點。過去曾有一些研究試圖了解刻意的微笑是否能調(diào)節(jié)人們在賽跑時的心理感受，但幾乎沒有研究聚焦于微笑對于體育成績的生理影響。

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《運動與訓練心理學》(Psychology of Sport and Exercise)9月發(fā)表的一項新研究中，研究人員召集了一批有經(jīng)驗的業(yè)余跑者，讓他們在跑步時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，本次試驗將考察與“跑步效率”有關的因素，跑步效率以在一定速度跑步時，邁步所消耗的氧氣量來衡量。

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檢測呼吸的面具，要求他們在跑步機上跑步，直到力竭，以此來測試他們正常的跑步效率。研究人員要求他們在跑步時對自身的感受評級，并描述他們會使用何種策略來堅持跑動。

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，志愿者會進入另一個實驗室，各自完成四組6分鐘的跑步，在這次跑步中，他們會被分配到四種不同的方法：持續(xù)地、發(fā)自內(nèi)心地微笑;皺眉;通過想象自己用放松的手指輕輕地拿著一片薯片來放松上半身;以及作為對照，要求他們用自己平時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)跑者在皺眉時效率最高，研究人員推測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。但試驗結果表明，大多數(shù)跑者在微笑時的效率是最高的。該研究的領頭人、阿爾斯特大學(Ulster University)運動心理學講師諾埃爾·布里克(Noel Brick)認為，微笑或許能通過促進“減少肌肉緊張”來提高運動效率。

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，大多數(shù)的跑者發(fā)現(xiàn)，很難在整個6分鐘的時段內(nèi)一直保持微笑：他們的微笑會越來越僵硬、不自然。這樣的假笑比真心的微笑激活的面部肌肉更少，并且很可能導致不夠放松、對運動表現(xiàn)的改善不大。因此，布里克說，通過微笑來成為一個更好的跑者，關鍵或許就在于真心地微笑，并且要在快跑到終點的最后30秒沖刺時微笑，而不是一直微笑。