External and global internal focus of attention on whole-body similarly increases the vertical jump performance: a randomised, controlled and crossover study

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aimed to compare the effects of three different foci of attention (external focus, global internal and specific internal focus) on vertical jump performance. Thirty-two recreationally active males participated in this study and performed the jumps at three different foci of attention conditions. The specific internal focus was based on the knee extension and the global internal focus was on whole-body extension. The external focus was conducted using an implement (plastic ball) attached to the laboratory ceiling. The analysis of variance for repeated measures with Bonferroni post hoc test was used to compare the performance variables among the conditions with the significance level set at p < 0.05. The main results demonstrated that the jump height was higher in the external focus condition compared to the control (p = 0.003) and the specific internal focus (p < 0.001); jump height was also higher in the global internal focus compared to specific internal focus (p = 0.012). The peak power and velocity were higher in the external compared to specific internal focus (p = 0.040 and 0.006, respectively). We concluded that external focus showed better performance for the peak power and velocity, while global internal focus showed higher performance for jump height compared to specific internal focus and a similar performance to the external focus.