This past weekend, I was in my backyard working on some chipping from 10 yards with 26 balls. I would hit them all toward a net, collect the ones that missed the target to hit them again. I repeated that process until I had 5 balls left. Looking at the 5 balls remaining, I realized that I hadn’t paid much attention to many of the previous shots. For each shot, I put a ball on the mat, maybe looked at my foot position and swung. I wasn’t sure where the ball would land, how high of a shot I was going to hit, or even if it would hit the target.
For the last 5 balls through, I was going to focus; I tuned out the sound of my wife playing with my daughter behind me, the street noise, and everything else that was happening. Before I hit the next 5 balls, I focused on making a smooth swing, imagining what the ball would do once it left the clubface. I knew what the trajectory was going to be, which side of the net it would hit; I could “see” the shot in my mind. Of those 5 chip shots, 3 landed in the net, and two missed by 6 inches total. The last round I was 2 for 2 using the same process.
By focusing earlier, rather than mindlessly swinging the club, I would have been more successful, sooner, and with more time to devote to effective practice.
Exercise and training can be performed in the same way. When training, mindlessly moving through an exercise or drill is much less effective than devoting 100% of your attention to that task. What should you focus on, though?
In a review article including 16 studies, David Neumann of Griffith University in Gold Coast Australia found that an external focus is superior to an internal focus when it comes to weight lifting. What that means for you is that focusing on the object you are lifting or moving has better overall results than focusing on a particular part of the body. When focusing on the barbell, participants in some studies demonstrated increased movement efficiency, better transfer of skill to increased resistances, and increased accuracy of force production.
As you learn a new movement, skill, or exercise, directing attention to HOW the body is moving will lead to more skill retention than focusing on which parts are doing the work. Let’s use a bicep curl as an example. If one person does the curl with a focus on the movement of the weight and making a smooth movement from start to finish, their learning will be better than someone who just focuses on squeezing the bicep muscle.
Having an external focus, also results in increased movement efficiency, that is less “extra” muscle activation than what is needed to complete the repetition. Increasing muscular efficiency means the first person in this example will likely be able to perform more repetitions prior to failure with the same resistance.
Using an internal focus did show some benefits, though. In multiple studies, internal focus, or thinking about the bicep muscle contraction in our example, proved to create more EMG – electromyogram, or measure of the electrical activity in a muscle- activity which means more of the muscle was working. This is beneficial for increasing muscle strength and size, particularly in isolated movements. Also, when performing high speed exercises, such as during Olympic lifts, internal focus may help to generate more velocity. Increased lifting speeds, means more force can be produced. Transferring greater force from the weight room to the golf course increases distance for all clubs in the bag.
The key to effectively using an internal or external focus to your benefit is to know what your goal is. When learning a movement or wanting to create a smooth movement, choosing external focus will yield the best results. If the goal of an exercise is to increase muscle size or strength, use an internal focus.
If you aren’t sure which focus to use when, reach out to me. We can schedule a time to meet or talk on the phone to review your training routine and how to implement these tools. I look forward to hearing from you soon!