Can Swearing During Exercise Improve Your Workout?

At the same time, the body typically has what’s known as an analgesic response, which increases your pain tolerance. “Swearing helps reduce pain perception, making exercise feel less painful, even when you’re pushing yourself to your limits,” Chertok explains. “There’s also research suggesting that swearing has psychological benefits, such as improving confidence, which could certainly be beneficial in a workout context.”

Using expletives to improve physical performance has been shown to work only with moves that are relatively short and intense, Chertok says, meaning strength training exercises like lifting weights and power-building exercises such as kettlebell swings and squat jumps. The same isn’t true of cardio, he adds. 

But that’s not to say there aren’t benefits to a little strategic swearing during your daily power walk, weekly spin class or run around the neighborhood. A study published in 2024 in the Journal of Exercise Physiology suggests that while swearing during intense cardio aerobic activity doesn’t impact endurance, it may make a bad mood a little better. 

What’s more, the study found that scores gauging mood and fatigue were worse with neutral words than with curse words.

How to practice strategic swearing

Swearing in the name of upping your workout isn’t the same as run-of-the-mill, anger-fueled spontaneous swearing directed at, say, the driver who abruptly switches lanes and causes you to swerve, missing another driver by this much. No, strategic swearing involves more control and, ahem, discipline. Where to begin?

First off, pick a swear word. The most effective ones are personally meaningful and/or pack an emotional punch, says Nick Washmuth, a researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who studies the beneficial effects and real-world usefulness of swearing. For most people, suggests a review of research published in 2024 in Frontiers in Psychology, that tends to be the F word or the S word.

Whatever it is, you should use it as you would any piece of strength-training equipment: Unabashedly and at a steady clip. In other words, suggests Washmuth, swear out loud using normal speech volume — not whispering, not shouting — and repeat your chosen swear word just before the physically challenging move and then about once every one to five seconds during the move.

As for the swearing averse, unfortunately, a robust dadgummit! fudge! or shoot! won’t get the job done. “Evidence suggests only actual swear words produce the desired psychophysiological effects,” Washmuth says. 

Something else to keep in mind: You should use your self-designated swear word judiciously. Curse words are stripped of their superpower when used to excess, diminishing their emotional charge. 

For those who avoid swearing, that’s good news. “If you rarely swear, you might actually experience a greater psychophysiological response when you do swear, leading to bigger performance benefits,” Washmuth says. “For strategic use, it may be wise to save swearing for special occasions — like tough workouts — to maximize its impact.” 

Adds Chertok: “The words we choose to use have a very real chemical effect.” For example, even though research suggests only actual swear words have the power to improve physical performance, Chertok believes “singular words like banana and vomit would induce microscopically different psychophysiological responses within us.”