The positive impacts of external focus of attention on performance, fatigue, and affect on a fatiguing task

Creating strategies to improve performance and delay fatigue is an important goal in the field of coaching and sports performance. These improvements are typically reached through training, nutritional, and psychological strategies. The present study aimed to investigate how attentional focus affects motor performance, physiological fatigue, muscle activation, muscle oxygenation, perceived exertion, and affect (pleasantness/unpleasantness) on fatiguing wall-sit tasks. Sixty physically active participants completed two wall-sit tasks until failure in a counterbalanced order, while adopting either an internal or external FoA. Our goal was to examine how FoA affected time to failure, physiological fatigue (MDF), muscle oxygenation (SmO₂), perceived exertion (RPE), and pleasantness during the two tasks. Results revealed that subjects prolonged time to failure when adopting an external FoA. Moreover, the external focus reduced RPE and unpleasantness during the wall-sit task relative to the internal FoA. However, no significant differences were observed between FoA conditions for MDF, muscle activation, or SmO2 despite significant muscle alterations in both conditions from the beginning to the end of each wall-sit task. In conclusion, adopting an external FoA improved time to failure in the wall-sit task and this result may be associated with reduced RPE and decreased feelings of unpleasantness close to the end of the task.