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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Sport Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1520156

This article is part of the Research Topic The Cognitive Era in Sports Performance: Mental Fatigue, Cognitive Training, and Psychological Ergogenic Substances View all 10 articles

Effects of mental fatigue on perception of effort and performance in national level swimmers

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
  • 2 Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study aimed to investigate the effects of mental fatigue on the perceptual and physiological responses to swimming at the lactate threshold (LT) and on 400-m front-crawl performance. Ten national-level swimmers were tested three separate times. In the first session, swimmers performed a 7x200-m incremental test for LT assessment. In sessions two and three, participants performed the AX-Continuous Performance Task for 90-min (mental fatigue condition) or rested for 90-min (control condition) in a randomized and counterbalanced order. After the experimental manipulation, the participants performed a 12x100-m constant-speed test at LT followed by a 400-m front-crawl performance test. Fatigue was measured using the Brunel Mood Scale before and after the experimental manipulation. Heart rate (HR), blood lactate concentration (La) and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured during the swimming tests. Generalized Mixed Models were used to test main effects and interactions, and Holm-Bonferroni post-hoc correction was applied when necessary (p<0.05). Fatigue increased only for the mental fatigue condition (p = 0.018). During the 12x100 m constant-speed test at LT, athletes in the mental fatigue condition presented higher RPE (p = 0.001) despite similar HR and La responses compared to control. Performance in the 400-m front-crawl test was significantly impaired in mentally fatigued swimmers (p < 0.001). These findings show that mental fatigue increases the perception of effort during swimming at LT despite no significant physiological alterations and reduces 400-m front-crawl performance in national level swimmers.

    Keywords: cognitive effort, Self-regulation, rating of perceived exertion, Swimming, performance

    Received: 30 Oct 2024; Accepted: 28 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 de Lima-Junior, Caporaso, Cortesi, Fortes and Marcora. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Matteo Cortesi, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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