Jockology: training for soccer

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My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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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.)

Crossing your fingers boosts performance (touch wood)

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My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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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.

Soccer science

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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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

Pacing, “deliberate practice,” and Jerry Schumacher

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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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.

The science of home-field advantage

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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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.