Tag: sports psych

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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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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.

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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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.)

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)

***

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!