Exercise Testing and Motivation

Abstract

Exercise testing has important applications for sport, exercise and clinical settings, providing valuable information for exercise prescription and diagnostics for health purposes. Often, exercise testing includes the participant’s maximal effort, and the testing score partially depends on whether the maximal effort has been exerted. In this context, motivation in exercise testing, including verbal encouragement and video presentation, plays a vital role in assessing participants. Professionals involved in exercise testing, such as exercise physiologists and sport scientists, should be aware of motivation’s role in performance during laboratory or field testing, especially using verbal encouragement. Motivation during exercise testing should be standardized and fully described in testing protocols. In this way, exercise testing would provide valid and reliable results for exercise prescription or other purposes (e.g., sport talent identification, athletes’ selection, education, research and rehabilitation).