Review of psychology, Vol. 19 No. 1, 2012.
Original scientific paper
Using auditory stimulation to enhance athletes’ strength: An experimental study in weightlifting
Mauro Murgia
; Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy
Fabrizio Sors
; Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy
Rossella Vono
; Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy
Allessandro Franco Muroni
; Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy
Laura Delitalia
; CONI-Italian Olympic Committee - Sardinia, Italy
Donatella Di Corrado
; Department of Sport and Motor Science, Kore University of Enna, Italy
Tiziano Agostini
; Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Italy
Abstract
In the last fifteen years sport psychology researchers have developed different perceptual strategies based on auditory stimulation in order to improve athletes’ skills. Most of these strategies focused on providing athletes with the correct timing of action, in order to make this information available for motor production setting. However, it has also been demonstrated that some sounds can be a useful tool to modulate the physiological arousal in order to optimize sport performances. In our study we propose a protocol of intervention based on the stimulation with an auditory track whose intensity varies in correspondence with the physical effort of each phase of a bench press exercise. Eighteen participants performed three bench press lifts, both in experimental condition (with the auditory stimulus) and in control condition (without any stimulation). We measured the power exerted during the lifting. The results show that athletes can take advantage of the stimulus we provided, evidencing a higher average exertion of power in the experimental condition, compared to the control condition. Concluding, the results suggest that auditory perception can be a productive field of research in developing experimental strategies to improve athletes’ skills.
Keywords
auditory perception; motor control; sport; strength
Hrčak ID:
91392
URI
Publication date:
17.8.2012.
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