Can Smiling Make You A Better Runner?

The science behind how training your facial muscles can impact your results.

- Stav Dimitropoulos

LAST YEAR, TOP-RANKED marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge ran 42.2 kilometres in just two hours and 25 seconds in Monza, Italy, as part of Nike’s Breaking2 project. His time, although not record-eligible, is the fastest marathon time ever recorded, and the effort required to clock it was undoubtedly gruelling. Yet Kipchoge never let it show on his face. In fact, it appeared as if he was actually grinning at times. No, he was not trying to mock his competitors. Kipchoge was smiling – he later told reporters – in order to relax and work through the pain, employing a strategy some runners have long believed to be true: that smiling while running can help you run more efficiently.

Considering the time and effort we dedicate to training and focusing on form, it’s hard to believe that something as simple as a smirk could have that much of an effect on our performance, but science backs it up. Studies have shown that when we enrich our workout with a smile, we feel that the effort we put out – our perceived effort – is far less than the effort we exert when we frown while exercising. But no research had seriously looked into the effects of manipulating our facial expressions by smiling or frowning on our running economy or perceived effort while running – that is, until now.

Researchers at Ulster University in Northern Ireland and Swansea University in Wales asked a group of 24 runners to wear a breathing mask to measure oxygen consumption and then complete four six-minute running blocks on a treadmill – while smiling, and while frowning. The study, which was recently published in