If you've gone to a gym before then you'll likely have come across some interesting types of people.
You'll have the social media addicts, who have to update their followers about their workout; you'll have the sweater, who could sort out Australia's drought crisis with just their bodily fluids; you'll also have the loud mouth, who makes it very clear that they're working out hard.
While the latter person usually provokes eye rolls from other gym goers, there could be something behind their loud remarks.
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Researchers have found that people who swear during a workout get better performance.
The UK's Keele University and Long Island University Brooklyn teamed up to see whether screaming out expletives was beneficial and, lo and behold, they were right.
Richard Stephens, the study's co-author and professor of psychology at Keele University said in a statement: "Swearing appears to be able to bring about improvements in physical performance that may not be solely dependent on a stress response arising out of the shock value of the swearing.
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"We know that swearing appears to be handled in brain regions not usually associated with language processing. It is possible that activation of these areas by swearing could produce performance improvements across many different domains."
In one test, researchers asked people in the study to hop on a bike and swear while doing a 30 second cycling test. They found this group performed 4.6 percent better than the group that was asked to do the same task without the swearing.
Another test reportedly resulted in eight percent better performance for hand grip strength.
According to Global News, previous studies have theorised that swearing increases our pain threshold and allows us to push ourselves harder. It's possible that these words help stimulate our 'fight or flight' response.
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"What is clear is that swearing triggers not only an emotional response but a physical one, too, which may explain why the centuries-old practice of cursing developed and still persists today," researchers wrote.
In that separate study, they got people to submerge their hand into icy cold water and blurt out swear words to see if that helped with the pain.
"Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing. However, swearing did not increase pain tolerance in males with a tendency to catastrophise," the study said.
So next time you're at the gym give it a go. But try to swear under your breath because no one wants to work out next to someone who's yelling every swear word under the sun.
Featured Image Credit: CBSTopics: Interesting, Community