The influence of verbal encouragement on heart rate, maximum oxygen uptake, and distance covered in young male adults during beep test

Abstract

Communication and motivation from physical education teachers is an important part of physical education classes. Therefore, it is necessary to look for suitable and effective methods to maximize students’ effort and performance. This study aimed to investigate the changes in aerobic performance after applying verbal encouragement (VE) to the beep test for university students. A group of 397 male students with average body mass index (BMI) 24.81 ± 5.88 and age 19.1 ± 1.3 was randomly selected for this study. Students were divided into two groups: physically active (237 PAS) and non-active students (160 NAS). These students underwent a beep test with and without VE in a counterbalancing manner. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was employed to find differences between the distance covered, maximum oxygen uptake and maximum heart rates after verbal VE and without stimulus (WS) in a beep test. The results showed that all students improved in the distance covered after VE compared to WS in the beep test (47.3 m, 5.53%, p < 0.0001), NAS (34.2 m, 4.44%, p = 0.013) and PAS (60.2 m, 6.62%, p < 0.0001). All students also increased maximal heart rate (beats per minute—BPM) values after VE stimulus compared to WS in the same test (1.01 BPM, 0.51%, p = 0.001) and PAS (1.58 BPM, 0.80%, p = 0.001). Only the NAS group did not significantly improve in maximal heart rate. These findings indicate that VE (“go-go or faster-faster”) applied every 60 seconds is more effective for improving endurance than without any stimulus and that VE improved performance statistically the same in both groups (NAS, PAS). Therefore, the positive effect of VE is similar to NAS and PAS.