Sweat Science

This week’s Jockology column rounds up a bunch of research on the optimal preparation and training for soccer: the mechanics of kicking, the physiology of repeated short sprints, the psychology of penalty kicks, the optimal warm-up and nutrition, rapid direction changes, etc. It’s in the form of a big infographic, put together by Trish McAlaster, the talented artist I often work with at the Globe. (We’re currently working a pretty cool graphic for the next column — stay tuned!)

Most interesting bit of info in the current column, for me, was this: when you run a short sprint, you get about 20% of the ATP you need from aerobic processes, and 80% from anaerobic processes. But if you keep sprinting (as you would for a soccer game), the third sprint is already 50% aerobic/50% anaerobic, and the “Nth” sprint is 75% aerobic/25% anaerobic. So if you want to be fast late in the game, you need to fuel yourself like an endurance athlete.

(This info comes from Stuart Phillips‘ chapter in the book Sports Nutrition: From Lab to Kitchen. And I actually simplified the info a bit for the column by combining the contributions from phosphocreatine with other anaerobic sources. The actual split for aerobic/anaerobic/phosphocreatine is 20/30/50 for the first sprint, 50/20/30 for the third, and 75/5/20 for the Nth.)

jockology, sports psych

Amby Burfoot points out a pretty neat study by German researchers in Psychological Science showing that superstition really does boost performance. The researchers point out that, despite their irrationality, superstitions are surprisingly prevalent across cultures, with famous examples such as Michael Jordan wearing his old UNC shorts under his NBA uniform for his entire career. And they’re particularly common in two groups “whose members regularly engage in performance tasks–namely, athletes and students.”

But do they work? The researchers did four studies that suggest they do. The first was a simple test: take ten putts on a golfing green and sink as many as you can.

[W]hile handing the ball over to the participants, the experimenter said, “Here is your ball. So far it has turned out to be a lucky ball” (superstition-activated condition) or “This is the ball everyone has used so far” (control condition).

Sure enough, the lucky ball group hit 6.42 putts, while the neutral ball group hit just 4.75.

The other three experiments involved motor dexterity, memory and anagrams, and the participants were primed with superstitions like keeping their fingers crossed or having a lucky charm present — all without realizing that the true purpose of the experiment was to test superstitions (anyone who figured it out was excluded from the analysis).

The upshot of the experiments is that superstition’s power appears to mediated through “self-efficacy” — basically, a positive superstition makes you believe you’ll perform better, and that confidence enables you to do so. The researchers point out that this is different from, say, bouncing the ball three times and exhaling loudly every time you take a foul shot. Those sorts of rituals serve to focus attention and trigger well-learned motor sequences, rather than boosting self-efficacy.

And, with respect to truly outstanding performances, [the authors conclude,] the present findings suggest that it may have been the well-balanced combination of existing talent, hard training, and good-luck underwear that made Michael Jordan perform as well as he did.

sports psych

When I went out for my run this morning, Sydney seemed like a ghost town: empty sidewalks, tumbleweed blowing down the streets, etc. The only signs of life were in the pubs, which had been open since 4 a.m. for the Socceroos’ Monday-morning World Cup debut. Inside, people were huddled quietly over their empty schooners, absorbing their 4-0 loss to Germany.

In that spirit, a couple of good recent articles on the science of soccer:

- Ross Tucker of The Science of Sport has started a series on the physiology of soccer. The first installment offers a good profile of what it takes to play a full game: running 10 to 15 km, including between 80 and 110 sprints, and so on. I had a chance to chat with Ross for a couple of hours last week for an upcoming article — a very interesting guy with lots of insight, as you can gather from the blog.

- A very thorough round-up of recent research on the psychology of the penalty kick, by Andrew Keh of the New York Times. As I write this, Ghana has just taken the first penalty kick of the tournament, scoring to defeat Serbia — but we’ll be seeing a lot more of these when we reach the elimination rounds. One of the most interesting observations:

Kick takers in a shootout score at a rate of 92 percent when the score is tied and a goal ensures their side an immediate win. But when they need to score to tie the shootout, with a miss meaning defeat, the success rate drops to 60 percent.

“This to me is the key finding of all our studies,” said Geir Jordet, a professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo who has analyzed shootouts with fervor. Jordet also found that shooting percentages tend to drop with each successive kick — 86.6 percent for the first shooter, 81.7 for the second, 79.3 for the third and so on.

“It demonstrates so clearly the power of psychology,” he said

soccer, sports psych

In a post last month, I mentioned having a chance to chat with Simon Whitfield about his recent training camp in Portland with the Nike running groups coached by Alberto Salazar and Jerry Schumacher. This week’s Jockology column in the Globe and Mail explores some of the ideas Whitfield talked about — in particular the fact that the Portland groups are very precise in monitoring their training paces, and how that relates concepts in sports psychology like “deliberate practice”:

… The group Mr. Whitfield trained with in Portland included Simon Bairu of Regina, who earlier this month smashed the Canadian record for 10,000 metres by 13 seconds at a race in Palo Alto, Calif., running 27:23.63. Chris Solinsky, another member of the group, broke the U.S. record in the same race, and a third member of the Portland group also dipped below the old U.S. record.

“They’re so precise about their pacing,” Mr. Whitfield says. “We came home with the message that when a tempo run is supposed to be, let’s say, 3:05 [per kilometre] pace, then 3:03 pace is not a success. That’s a fail.”

Such precision may be daunting, but it’s a hallmark of “deliberate practice,” a concept advanced by Florida State University cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson and popularized in recent books like Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success. The best way to master an activity is not simply to repeat it mindlessly over and over again, Dr. Ericsson argues, but to set specific goals and monitor how well you meet them.[READ THE FULL ARTICLE]

I also chatted to Lex Mauger, the lead author of a recent study on pacing in a 4-km cycling time-trial. The study showed that getting accurate pace feedback during a hard effort really does lead to better performances — something many athletes would have told you intuitively, but which had never been shown. In particular, pace feedback seems to be crucial in the early stages of a race, before you’ve settled into a rhythm.

cycling, sports psych, triathlon

In celebration of a couple of Canadian gold medals in Vancouver, this week’s Jockology looks at the science behind home-field advantage:

The biggest edge gold medalists Maëlle Ricker and Alexandre Bilodeau had over their Olympic opponents may have been from their brain chemistry rather than the roar of Canadian spectators at Cypress Mountain.

A series of studies over the past decade has debunked the long-held theory that home advantage stems primarily from external factors such as an enthusiastic crowd, a familiar venue, travel-weary opponents and officials whose calls are swayed by the crowd. While these factors can play a role, a more basic biological imperative may be at work, as athletes display an evolutionarily driven desire to protect their territory. [read on...]

There are a bunch of interesting studies on the topic, which dissect the role of crowds, stadiums, refs and so on. There’s a sidebar to the piece that doesn’t appear in the online version (not sure if it’s in the paper version), so I’ll reproduce it here:

Can fans influence the game?
A new study shows that sports teams have a “home advantage” even if there’s no one in the stands. But that doesn’t mean crowds don’t have an impact. A 2002 study in the journal Psychology of Sport & Exercise asked qualified soccer referees to make calls on games they watched on video, with the sound either turned on or off. The refs who could hear crowd noise called 15 per cent fewer fouls against the home team than those watching in silence.

sports psych

When you kick a soccer ball, it tends to go where you’re looking. The problem is that when you’re anxious, you tend to fixate on threats — the goalkeeper, in this case — and consequently kick it straight at him. That’s the message from an interesting University of Exeter study published last month, which I just noticed thanks to Dan Peterson’s blog.

The players wore special glasses which enabled the researchers to record precise eye movements and analyse the focus of each footballer’s gaze and the amount of time spent looking at different locations in the goal. The results showed that when anxious, the footballers looked at the goalkeeper significantly earlier and for longer. This change in eye behaviour made players more likely to shoot towards the centre of the goal, making it easier for the keeper to save.

The solution? “Research shows that the optimum strategy for penalty takers to use is to pick a spot and shoot to it, ignoring the goalkeeper in the process,” the study’s author says. And to do that, you need to practice, so that the skill becomes so ingrained it no longer requires conscious control, as discussed in this Jockology column.

mental, sports psych

This week’s Jockology column takes a closer look at the idea that group exercise offers some benefits that solo sessions don’t.

The question

Will taking a class or finding training partners help me keep my exercise resolutions this year?

The answer

Consider the similarities between a modern exercise class and an ancient religious rite – the wise leader guiding the group through a series of ritualized movements, in perfect synchronization. If you’re struggling to keep faith with your fitness goals, this apparent coincidence might offer a solution.

New research suggests that group exercise unleashes a flood of chemicals in the brain, triggering the same responses that have made collective activities from dancing and laughter to religion itself such enduring aspects of human culture. For some (but not all) people, finding workout buddies could help turn fitness into a pleasant addiction. [read on...]

Obviously people have a lot of different reasons for working out in groups — or for working out on their own, for that matter. But I found the study of Oxford rowers described in the article to be one of the most interesting studies of 2009. In the running community, there’s a lot of debate about why so many athletes stop competing seriously after they finish university. Again, there are clearly many different reasons — but I’ve heard a lot of runners say that the training experience just isn’t the same once they’re no longer part of a group working out together and sharing common goals. Maybe this is really just a form of endorphin withdrawal!

sports psych

This week’s Jockology column is about performing under pressure — though it has surprising applications even to simple tasks like running:

The question

When the game is on the line, should I take my time with the ball or just get it over with?

The answer

When you’re lining up a crucial putt, the last thing you want to hear is an impatient jerk behind you yelling, “Hey buddy, could you hurry it up a bit?”

But new research suggests that jerk may be doing you a favour.

Psychologists and neuroscientists are finding that when we perform complex motor sequences that we’re very familiar with, concentrating too much on the details makes our performance worse. It’s what causes choking on the putting green or at the free-throw line – and it’s why a bit of a distraction can be a good thing. [read on...]

sports psych

Over the past few months, I’ve posted a few links to interesting studies about the potential positive and negative effects of distractions on your workout. I decided to take a deeper look at the literature in this field, and put together a Jockology column that appears in today’s Globe and Mail on the topic.

The question

I love listening to music or watching TV when I exercise. How does that affect my workout?

The answer

In a forthcoming study, British researchers secretly sped up or slowed down music by 10 per cent and observed the effect on subjects riding exercise bikes. Sure enough, like marionettes on musical strings, the riders unconsciously sped up or slowed down.

The results add to a complex body of research on how distractions influence our exercise performance, extending far beyond the simple psych-up provided by motivational lyrics. Instead of just hitting shuffle next time you’re at the gym, you might be able to harness these benefits by taking control of your playlist to enhance your workout. [read on...]

Ultimately, it’s a pretty complicated stew of different (and sometimes conflicting) effects. You might be listening to a tune whose motivational lyrics urge you forward, but also distract you from the physical cues you might otherwise rely on to maintain your intensity. And you might find your breathing or stride rate locking in sync with the music — which could be good or bad, depending on the tempo. And all of those factors might be overridden by the simple question of how much you like the tune that’s playing. So for now, I think optimizing a playlist remains a matter of personal preference.

(And I almost hesitate to say this, because I realize I’m in a shrinking minority, but my own inclination is to exercise in silence. If I’m outside, I like hearing my surroundings, particularly if I’m in a nice forest or park. And in general, I like to let my thoughts wander aimlessly and free-associate. The problem with music, I find, is that I tend to really listen to it, so it guides and anesthetizes my thoughts. For the same reason, I can’t write with music on in the background — it grabs my attention too forcefully.)

mental, sports psych

A few months ago, I wrote about some research showing that people in “spinning” classes tended to exercise wayyy harder than if they’d just hopped on an exercise bike by themselves. In fact, many spinners were reaching intensities higher than the “maximum” predicted by researchers! With that in mind, I was interested to see a recent study in Biology Letters from researchers at Oxford University about the chemical effects of group workouts. As a BBC report put it:

Exercising together appears to increase the level of the feel-good endorphin hormones naturally released during physical exertion, a study suggests. A team from Oxford University carried out tests on 12 rowers after a vigorous workout in a virtual boat. Those who trained alone withstood less pain - a key measure of endorphins - than those who exercised together.

It’s worth noting that they didn’t simply measure rowing performance, where the motivational effects of being in a group might have helped the subjects push harder. They actually subjected them to a torture test: after the rowing, they inflated a blood-pressure sleeve around the subjects’ arms to cut off circulation, and timed how long they could withstand the pain. (Resistance to pain is a proxy for endorphin production.) Sure enough, the solo exercisers couldn’t last as long as the group exercisers, indicating that there was something going on inside the body during the group workout.

The researchers speculate that this mechanism may be the key to other social activities (”such as laughter, music-making and dancing”). More importantly, from our point of view, it’s good to have a reason to seek out training partners!

mental, sports psych