Psych!

After sliding weights onto each end of a bar and adding collars to keep them in place, you lie faceup on the bench, grasp the bar with both hands and lift it to the starting position. At the same time, intentionally or not, you're psyching yourself up for the task at hand: Pressing the weight 10 times, pushing your chest muscles to the max.

But what if, instead of simply proceeding step-by-step through your workouts, you made a conscious habit of psyching up before each set? Would concentrating your mental power on building your muscles have any effect? Exercise scientists have wondered the same thing.

"Athletes usually have to do things quickly or in a powerful manner," says Brad Hatfield, PhD, a professor of kinesiology with an appointment in neuroscience at the University of Maryland (College Park). "The kind of increased intensity [that psyching up provides] will help them match their physiological states with what the task demands." Psyching yourself up, then, is an attempt to jump-start the synergy between your body and what's being asked of it. "Once you start moving, a number of psychological parameters kick in to get the body into the right arousal state," Hatfield explains.

The reason for this response is less clear. "Broadly speaking, the mind issues commands that direct muscles to work," notes David Tod, PhD, of the Centre for Rehabilitation, Exercise and Sport Science at Victoria University (Melbourne, Australia). But can the mind issue commands to make muscles work harder?

Getting Psyched

When you put your mind to lifting, it does yield a measurable outcome, according to a 2005 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. More specifically, psyching up may increase force production during the bench press. New Zealand researchers investigated the effect of psyching up on force production during the bench press by having 12 men and eight women with strength-training experience perform five reps after being distracted, while paying attention or after psyching themselves up in a manner of their choosing. The result: Psyching up increased peak force by 11.8% compared to being distracted and 8.1% compared to paying attention.

This differs from an earlier study in which Hatfield and his colleagues set out to determine the influence of mental preparation on muscle. When they noted the muscle activity along the spines of 15 strength-trained men, both after the subjects psyched themselves up for a lift and after performing a distraction task like mental arithmetic, the researchers found no difference in performance. Yet Hatfield thinks the problem was with the subjects, not the psyching-up process.

"My feeling is that in both conditions the subjects psyched. The difference is that in one group they had a few seconds to do it and in the other they did it instantaneously. I think if we took some beginners and let them mentally prepare, we might see a difference."

Tod agrees: "Researchers have studied self-reported psychological states and physiological arousal, but there haven't been any consistent findings yet. The most consistent result from the research is that untrained lifters doing dynamic movements are likely to produce more force and have better muscular endurance [when properly psyched]."

Activating the emotional area of the brain might be the most effective psyching strategy since it's networked with the motor areas of the brain. "It could very well be that emotions like anger would serve as a damn good way to get you psyched up, in terms of recruiting more motor units and more force production in your muscle," Hatfield says. "Emotion is the bottom line."

Put this theory to work by recalling events in your life that have made you angry. If you don't have these experiences to draw from, try jumping up and down or breathing rapidly, which may produce the equivalent of the helmet-butting psyching strategy of your (or your boyfriend's) favorite football team.

Internal Monologues

When cranking up the intensity, talking to yourself may help you go for the gusto, according to a 2007 study in the journal Sports Medicine. We're not talking about becoming the crazy muttering lady on the treadmill, but depending on your activity, an inner monologue could help you go the distance or work harder.

Research has found that the majority of thoughts people have during long-term, low-intensity exercise helps them disassociate from the task at hand. For instance, if you're trying to get through a half-marathon, chatting with your girlfriend about her upcoming nuptials can help you complete the 13.1 miles. Yet if you kick up the intensity, you're actually putting your head in the game. You start talking to yourself to motivate and think more about how you're feeling, which includes body and pace monitoring, commands and instruction.

In addition, researchers at Northumbria University (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) suggest that self-talk is necessary for creating a "time wedge" between the activity described by the self-talk and the self-talk itself. The redundancy this time wedge creates allows you to reflect on what you're about to do and how you factor into the activity. For instance, you may say to yourself, "I can do this," before attempting to bench press a particularly heavy load. Then, during the time between saying the words and performing the lift, you think about how your body needs to be positioned and how you need to breathe.

Although recent studies suggest that task-specific self-talk appears to have a beneficial effect on physical performance, more research needs to be done to clarify the relationship. In the meantime, the bottom line is this: Researchers know your brain sends more stimulation to muscles when you're psyched up; they just haven't found the experiment that proves it. While they look for answers, why not spend a few seconds before each lift psyching yourself up? Odds are, you'll end up stronger for the effort.

Motivation to train may be partially driven by how you see yourself--whether or not you consider yourself to be physically active. So when it comes to getting motivated, going to the gym and viewing yourself positively can reinforce each other.

A recent study in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise found that after nine months of supervised physical activity four times per week and instruction about how to promote activity outside of school, previously sedentary adolescent girls increased their participation in vigorous activity and cardiovascular fitness. Those who increased their fitness enhanced their physical self-concept, meaning they saw themselves as athletic.

This doesn't apply just to adolescent girls. "In our study of about 400 adults, we found that those who reported being vigorously active had a stronger identity as a physically active person," says Kim Miller, PhD, an assistant professor of health promotion at the University of Kentucky (Lexington). "Other research has shown that behavior and identity reinforce each other. Therefore, with regard to adherence, the more I identify with physical activity as part of who I am, the more likely I am to adhere to the activity."

Find an activity you enjoy and excel at, and motivation won't be a problem.