Why?
Exercise physiology yields no conclusive answers. Perhaps psychological research could discover the reason. But until then, we can only conjecture.
Some hypotheses:
- athlete's are more used to pushing themselves to their limits, so encouragement matters less
- athlete's are more instrinsically motivated
- athlete's care about their performance outcome more
- non-athlete's need more help with suppressing thoughts of quitting
Do you have any other ideas?
Because others cheering for me has made a difference in my performance, I went to thinking about the validity of these results. Assuming they are accurate, I wonder if perhaps cheering does not neccessarily make a difference because:
- this is a test where the participants are prepared to work to their limits and only when confronted with pain, which athlete's are more practiced at handling, are the differences made. Athlete's are not always prepared to perform to their limits in competition.
- cheering might not make a difference for athletes in a test for your cardiovascular limits, but it may still help an athlete perform better - faster, stronger, more focused...
- Social facilitation theory says that others simply watching makes people perform better. Perhaps knowing people were watching or would judge the outcome was enough of a reason to propel the athlete without cheering. Perhaps in competition, cheering reminds an athlete, now one of many instead of singular doing a test, that he is being watched.
Does cheering help you perform better? I think we athletes like to be cheered on, but does it really help?
I can think of a specific races where I am sure the person cheering was just the impetus I needed to excel. Can you?
How would you explain the VO2 max test results?
Something to consider in establishing the effect of cheering is the importance of the event being cheered about. In a MaxVO2 test, the emotional importance to a trained athlete is minimal. A trained athlete is used to pushing his body to and past his limit daily, and just testing this limit is not an emotional event for him, so encouragement (in the way of cheering) to improve performance may have very little effect. What may have more effect for the athlete is to have previous results (either from him or someone else) that the athlete wishes to beat. However, a person who is not used to pushing himself to and past the limit may really benefit from the encouragement.
ReplyDeleteWhen the athlete is competing there is an emotional investment to perform and excel, therefore the energy and emotion from others cheering may have a more measurable or noticeable effect. This may be especially true if the cheering is from a large number of people or from people important to the athlete. We all know emotion is contagious and excitement displayed in cheering can easily add energy: just go to a rock concert and you'll feel this.