Glimpsing the Impossible: How Artificially Enhanced Targets Improve Elite Performance

In 2009, elite swimming introduced polyurethane “supersuits,” which artificially enhanced performances and facilitated 43 world records at the World Championships, before being prohibited from 2010. This transient, artificial improvement spike created a natural experiment to examine the effect of “impossible” targets on subsequent performances. Analyses revealed that swimming speeds at global championships in the postsupersuit period (2011–2017) were substantially faster than predicted from the presupersuit period (2000–2007). These results suggest that the transient, artificially enhanced performances of the supersuit era recalibrated targets upward—acting as goals—and improved subsequent performances beyond previous trajectories (d = 0.64; 0.70%). Contributing to psychological goal-setting theory, the positive relationship between the size of the transient, artificial improvement (i.e., goal difficulty) and subsequent performance was curvilinear, increasing at a decreasing rate before improvements plateaued. Overall, the research demonstrates the potential for elite athletes to exceed perceived human limits after expectations have been recalibrated upward.