Question: Can performance be increased by increased desire. I.E. lifting a car to save someone trapped beneath it. So is performance more mental than physical?

Rose Turner answered on 13 Jun 2017:

There are definitely mental aspects to performance. Willpower, which gives us the ability to do things that are difficult, is key aspect of physical performance. Until recently, it was thought to be a limited resource – in other words, it could be ‘used up’ or reduced if you used it a lot. However this has been called into question.

Recent research has found that swearing can reduce pain, so cyclists, for example, can keep going through the pain if they repeat a swear-word over and over again! The theory behind this is that swearing activates the physiological experience of stress (‘fight or flight’) by increasing heart rate and arousing the autonomic nervous system. This puts us into a state where we can tolerate higher levels of pain.

Therefore, the brain, mental processes and the body can be thought of as one dynamic system, and performance can be considered to have both mental and physical aspects. There will always be physical limitations, however: if you didn’t have strong enough arm muscles you probably couldn’t life a car no matter how much you wanted to (and no matter how many swear words you used!!)