When you see Victoria's secret supermodels sweating in the gym with mirrors, are you also stimulated and want to do the same thing with them-exercise in front of the mirror and correct your manners? If so, you should be careful! Mirrors will not make you have a perfect figure, but will amplify your shortcomings, which will eventually lead you to lose confidence and even stop stepping into the gym. If you want to exercise more efficiently in the gym, the most important thing is not to have a mirror, but the external environment closely related to your exercise. Do some exercise in front of the mirror, okay? For bodybuilders in the city, it has long been common for gyms to be equipped with mirrors. However, there has always been controversy about how much role mirrors can play in fitness. Some people who love fitness believe that exercising in front of a mirror can correct their body shape and improve their exercise efficiency. More importantly, seeing the imperfect self in the mirror can stimulate the athletes' fighting spirit. Another voice totally disagrees with this "positive" role of the mirror. They think that the mirror will only make those imperfect people lose confidence and even refuse to go to the gym again. A few years ago, a study published in the American Journal of Health Psychology showed that mirrors can make athletes more self-reflective, so they can better understand their own shortcomings and carry out targeted training. However, this study also points out that some beginners will become irritable, depressed and even afraid after exercising in front of the mirror for a period of time. On the contrary, people who don't look in the mirror are more confident and calm. From a series of discussions and research results, we can not only find the motivation of fitness from the mirror, but also find its negative effects. So, is the mirror useful for fitness? In fact, what role the mirror plays in fitness depends on the specific exercise and experience of the trainer. Therefore, what can really play a decisive role may be ourselves. Recently, a study published in the academic journal PLoS One chose another way to explore how much influence mirrors have on us. The result is quite different from what we expected. This article from an Israeli researcher mainly discusses the role of mirrors in people's concentration. Researchers divide people's attention into external focus, that is, paying attention to the surrounding environment related to your exercise; There is also internal concentration, that is, paying attention to how your body parts or muscle groups move. The results of this study show that in many exercises, athletes pay more attention to external factors than to internal factors. For this conclusion, the researcher takes basketball as an example to illustrate. If you focus on the basket instead of the wrist, your free throw percentage will be much higher. One theory holds that this phenomenon occurs because external attention can make people spontaneously make skilled movements, which is more efficient than trying to directly control complex behaviors. So, is the "looking in the mirror" movement an internal cause or an external cause? Most researchers still classify it as an external factor, but this does not mean that mirrors are effective in sports. In order to test the effect, Israeli researchers conducted experiments on single-joint exercise and multi-joint exercise. The former requires bending the elbow as hard as possible, while the latter requires jumping as high as possible. The experiment is divided into four situations. First of all, focus on your muscle groups and exert yourself. The second is to pay attention to the speed and height of your traction belt or when you leave the ground; Third, I don't care about anything; The fourth is to act in front of the mirror. The experimental results show that the second situation has the most significant influence on sports, while the first situation has the worst influence. There is almost no difference between the third and fourth cases. In other words, it really doesn't matter whether there is a mirror or not. If you want to exercise more effectively, the most important thing is to pay attention to the external environment. Is it more effective to exercise in front of the mirror? A study in Britain shows that running in front of the mirror on the treadmill is helpful to form a correct running posture for people who have just joined the running ranks. The researchers asked volunteers to run on the treadmill for three groups of 20 minutes every other day, and put ordinary full-length mirrors and life-size static pictures in front of the treadmill. After excluding many individual differences, they come to the conclusion that running in front of the mirror can improve the coordination of limbs, help novices form correct running posture and avoid excessive exercise. However, with the improvement of runners' level, the effectiveness of this practice is gradually decreasing. For veterans, static pictures are more helpful for them to improve their grades. In the related research of running, there have been similar conclusions. A study in 2009 showed that during running, it is more efficient for runners to pay attention to their surroundings than to their own speed or breathing. Generally speaking, the more a runner thinks during running, the slower his speed will be, but this does not mean that it is no longer important to pay attention to your body and the movement itself. Because running is a complicated muscle movement, every behavior of a runner, such as running or jumping, will have different effects. Research shows that paying attention to running methods and speed will help runners improve their performance. 20 14 Boston Marathon champion Meb Keflezighi once said. At that time, when he was still 1 mile away from the finish line, he could hardly hold on. At this time, he said to himself: "Technology! Technology! Technology! " Meb Keflezighi is to shift his attention from fatigue to running skills, so that he can run faster without increasing physical exertion. It is worth noting that, unlike the previous single-joint or multi-joint experiments, running requires more complicated muscle movements, which are generated by accurate calculation of the brain, so there is not much internal self-awareness. Therefore, for people who exercise in the gym, there is no need to worry that running on the treadmill in front of the mirror will affect the fitness effect. Not only that, it is possible to get twice the result with half the effort by paying attention to your pace and skills when running. Is it more effective to exercise in front of the mirror? 3 1. Do you look in the mirror in the gym? I believe that the most important thing in many gyms is to have a big mirror on every wall. Do you often practice in front of the mirror? After practice, put some pos in front of the mirror and take another photo! 3, practicing in front of the mirror can easily check your movements, so that the body can master the correct movements faster. Trainers can check their movements from different angles with mirrors, which provides valuable feedback here. Watching yourself lift heavy objects helps to improve your confidence. It's also nice to watch yourself work hard. 5, but! You may not know that practicing in front of the mirror will make you lose something important! 6. Unlike the standard gym, there is no mirror in the weightlifting center. If there is a mirror nearby, weightlifters often train with their backs to the mirror on purpose. Interesting. 7. At the beginning of training! Always squat in front of the mirror and adjust the training movements mentioned above! But once the squat frame moves, it feels strange without a mirror! 8. So, I began to cover the mirror during squat training. I hope I can feel the correct squat depth, and I won't be used to judging with a mirror. 9. One day, when I was practicing jumping in front of the mirror, I found myself watching my jumping and landing with the mirror instead of feeling it. I don't think this is right. I decided to study the problem in depth. 10, assuming that training in front of the mirror will gradually weaken the athletic ability, prolong the reaction time, slow down the speed of manufacturing power, affect the balance ability and worsen the proprioception. 1 1, eyes and inner ear. 12, it is easier to degenerate than young people. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, but the most widely accepted assumption is that with the growth of age, our inner sense of balance (which is the responsibility of the inner ear) will weaken, and we gradually begin to rely on vision to maintain balance. 13, we began to look at our body posture with our eyes. If your body starts to tilt, the scenery in your eyes will also tilt, and then you will try to solve this problem. This system is effective, but it is not as effective as maintaining balance with the inner ear. 14. It takes a little longer to visually judge and solve the balance problem. Light must be reflected from the object to your eyes. The brain judges the image and then sends a signal to solve the balance problem. 15 but the feeling of inner balance becomes more sensitive to subtle changes in body posture. After observing the problem of visual balance, it can quickly send a signal to solve the problem. The vision system only needs to spend a little more time, but the extra time will have a great impact on the results.