If you’re an avid runner, you in all probability have a good suggestion of how your coaching shapes your strides. Nonetheless, fascinating new analysis reveals that your personal traits might also make clear the way you run—and all you want is an easy character take a look at to learn the way.
In an April 2024 PLoS One research, researchers discovered that your Myers-Briggs character kind can decide when you run in an earthbound model or in a extra springy, dynamic vogue (each of which might have an effect on your efficiency).
Right here’s what to know concerning the Myers-Briggs character take a look at, what the research authors found, and how one can apply the findings to your personal coaching.
What’s the Myers-Briggs character take a look at?
Formally referred to as the Myers-Briggs Kind Indicator (MBTI) evaluation, this instrument is supposed that will help you perceive your character and apply these insights to spice up their private {and professional} effectiveness, per The Myers-Briggs Firm.
The take a look at identifies you as considered one of 16 MBTI character varieties, based mostly on the next 4 classes.
Extraversion-introversion
These are reverse methods of directing and receiving vitality.
Individuals with extraversion get their vitality from the outer world of individuals and experiences—and focus their vitality and a focus outward, as nicely by actions.
If in case you have introversion, you gas up on vitality out of your interior world of ideas (and have a tendency to focus your consideration in that very same inward path).
Sensing-intuition
This class refers to alternative ways of taking in data.
In the event you’re on the sensing aspect, you deal with what’s “actual” by taking in data out of your 5 senses.
These on the instinct aspect, then again, choose data by affiliation and deal with the probabilities of what might be.
Considering-feeling
These are reverse methods of constructing selections and coming to conclusions.
In the event you’re within the pondering class, you’re all about goal logic, and also you attempt to analyze conditions with out getting emotionally concerned with them.
In the event you’re within the feeling class, you favor to make selections based mostly on values and weigh the human motives behind sure conditions.
Judging-perceiving
This class covers the alternative ways individuals strategy the skin world.
In the event you’re on the judging aspect, you prefer to preserve issues deliberate and arranged. You take pleasure in making a choice and having the closure that comes with that.
However, when you’re on the perceiving aspect, you favor to maintain your choices open—choosing a spontaneous, adaptable life-style.
“The outcomes of this research are actually attention-grabbing, and in my expertise as a working coach, there are actually methods wherein a runner’s character influences how they run, practice, and reply to teaching.” —Alexa Duckworth-Briggs, working coach
What’s the analysis behind Myers-Briggs personalities and working?
Within the PLoS One research, researchers needed to grasp how your Myers-Briggs character kind impacts your working model. They analyzed 80 runners who accomplished randomized 50-meter working trials at varied speeds and assessed their character traits utilizing the MBTI take a look at.
The outcomes confirmed that the sensing-intuition class, specifically, was related to working model. The researchers discovered that runners who fall into the “instinct” class are likely to deal with their legs like elastic springs, utilizing a dynamic working type with a stretch-shortening model.
In the meantime, those that have been on the “sensing” aspect erred towards working in a extra earthbound vogue. These runners launched themselves ahead with every stride, slightly than upward.
“This exploratory research gives compelling proof that character traits, particularly sensing and instinct, are related to distinct working biomechanics,” observe the authors within the research. “Sensing runners, who take note of bodily realities and like sensible and particular details, are likely to undertake a extra grounded working type.”
Nonetheless, there are a couple of limitations of this analysis: For one, it’s a comparatively small research, solely taking a look at 80 runners. Plus, though the researchers recruited runners with various coaching backgrounds, practically 70 of them have been male and all of them recognized as Caucasian (so the research lacked gender and racial range).
The query of which working model is “higher” additionally relies on the context.
“A working model that entails extra dynamic, elastic actions is usually related to higher efficiency in sprinting and actions requiring explosive energy,” says Alexa Duckworth-Briggs, a U.Ok. Athletics-certified working coach for We Run, based mostly in Studying, England. “In distinction, a extra earthbound working model may be extra environment friendly over longer distances, the place conserving vitality is essential.”
“I see loads of worth in a research like this. If nothing else, it’s going to hopefully get coaches taking a look at athletes in a extra holistic method. One cue actually doesn’t work for all athletes.” —Kristen Hislop, CPT
What do the research outcomes imply for runners?
Though these research outcomes aren’t definitive in terms of how your character may have an effect on your working, coaches agree that character traits can have an effect on your general coaching.
“The outcomes of this research are actually attention-grabbing, and in my expertise as a working coach, there are actually methods wherein a runner’s character influences how they run, practice, and reply to teaching,” Duckworth-Briggs says. “The try and formalize our understanding of those hyperlinks is fascinating—and will open up potentialities to additional tailor a runner’s teaching to swimsuit them higher.”
As an illustration, based mostly on the outcomes of this research, intuitive runners may discover it useful to incorporate working drills or leaping workouts of their coaching to develop their pure propensity for dynamic working.
Intuitive runners may also profit from understanding how they transfer up and down when working (referred to as vertical oscillation) and tuning into their working rhythm to hone in on how a lot time their toes spend on the bottom, provides working coach Kristen Hislop, CPT, a USAT Stage 1 licensed triathlon coach and AFAA licensed private coach.
In the meantime, a sensing runner may do higher by desirous about the really feel of the bottom beneath their toes.
“I typically say to think about the bottom as a treadmill with no motor,” Hislop says. “You land on it and wish to get the tread transferring.”
As a result of the research assessed working model over 50-meter repeats (which isn’t a quite common distance exterior of dash coaching), extra analysis is required to grasp individuals’s character and working model over longer distances, particularly once they’re fatigued.
Nonetheless, the outcomes might encourage runners to contemplate their very own character kind and the way it impacts their working, even exterior of the sensing-intuition class.
“Extroverted runners, for instance, may discover they excel in group settings and aggressive environments,” Duckworth-Briggs says. “Or a choice for pondering or feeling may affect how a runner responds to suggestions from a coach or aggressive stress. These insights can show very helpful in tailoring a runner’s strategy to their coaching.”
Understanding an athlete’s character profile might also assist coaches higher tailor their instruction for runners.
“I see loads of worth in a research like this,” Hislop says. “If nothing else, it’s going to hopefully get coaches taking a look at athletes in a extra holistic method. One cue actually doesn’t work for all athletes.”
In the event you’re a runner, you might discover it useful to take the Myers-Briggs character take a look at to be taught extra about how your character might be affecting your coaching, the stress of races and competitors, purpose setting, and past.
By higher understanding your character, you might discover you higher perceive your sport.
Effectively+Good articles reference scientific, dependable, current, sturdy research to again up the data we share. You may belief us alongside your wellness journey.
- Gindre C, Patoz A, Breine B, Lussiana T. Thoughts to maneuver: Variations in working biomechanics between sensing and instinct shod runners. PLoS One. 2024 Apr 3;19(4):e0300108. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300108. PMID: 38568899; PMCID: PMC10990178.
