title: From Mind to Body: Is Mental Practice Effective on Strength Gains? A Meta-Analysis.
abstract: Mental practice is an internal reproduction of a motor act (whose intention is to promote learning and improving motor skills). Some studies have shown that other cognitive strategies also increase the strength and muscular resistance in healthy people by the enhancement of the performance during dynamic tasks. Mental training sessions may be primordial to improving muscle strength in different subjects. The aim of this study was to systematically review and meta-analiyze studies that assessed whether mental practice is effective in improving muscular strength. We conducted an electronic-computed search in Pub-Med/Medline and ISI Web of Knowledge, Scielo and manual searchs, searching papers written in English between 1991 and 2014. There were 44 studies in Pub-Med/Medline, 631 in ISI Web of Knowledge, 11 in Scielo and 3 in manual searchs databases. After exclusion of studies for duplicate, unrelated to the topic by title and summary, different samples and methodologies, a meta-analysis of 4 studies was carried out to identify the dose-response relationship. We did not find evidence that mental practice is effective in increasing strength in healthy individuals. There is no evidence that mental practice alone can be effective to induce strength gains or to optimize the training effects.
authors.forename: João Paulo
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Manochio
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lattari
authors.forename: Eduardo Matta Mello
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Portugal
authors.forename: Renato Sobral
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Monteiro-Junior
authors.forename: Flávia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Paes
authors.forename: Henning
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Budde
authors.forename: Paulo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: de Tarso Veras Farinatti
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Arias-Carrión
authors.forename: Mirko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wegner
authors.forename: Mauro Giovanni
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Carta
authors.forename: Gioia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mura
authors.forename: Nuno Barbosa
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Ferreira Rocha
authors.forename: Leonardo Ferreira
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Almada
authors.forename: Antonio Egidio
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Nardi
authors.forename: Ti-Fei
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Panic and Respiration, Institute of Psychiatry (IPUB) - - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. secm80@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Machado
mesh_terms: D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D053580:Muscle Strength; D011214:Practice, Psychological