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Welcome!
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Every week, we dive into research studies that caught my eye. This week we look at everything from the impact of sleep on recovery, to motivation and striving, to group hierarchies and battles for status. Let's get into the science!
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-Steve​

​Do Players Perform Better During Contract Years?​

What they found: In professional sports there's an old adage that athletes perform better during their final year of their contract year. They have something to prove and money to earn, conventional thinking goes. But does is it true? Research in this area has been mixed, depending on the sport, but this study investigated whether or not it occurs in the NFL. And what they found is actually the opposite. On average, contract year players underperformed comparable peers. They did worse when their next contract was on the line, when they didn't have the security. Not only that, the higher the salary, the worse the performance.

So What? While this study didn't test why athletes underperformed, we can speculate based on other research. One key piece is that a contract year could increase uncertainty and the pressure to perform. You don't have the security to know you'll be around next year. For the most part, pressure follows an inverted-U when it comes to performance. A bit can help, too much can hurt. The key is that each of us has our individual set-point, with some needing more or less than others. How we interpret that pressure also matters. In this study, with higher current salary being related to worse performance, high salary players might think they have more to lose. So they adopt a preventative mindset, trying to protect what they have. So what? While most of us might not be star athletes playing for a contract year, we all face the pressure to perform. If we amplify the money we could make (or lose), it might come back to bite you.

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​When We Lose, Here's How to Compete Again​

What they found: When we face a defeat, our willingness to compete again drops precipitously. In this study, they looked at what influenced that. The researchers found that it was related to testosterone levels. If testosterone levels dropped after a loss, people didn't want to compete again. They threw in the towel. On the other hand, if they could keep testosterone levels up, people chose to compete again.

So What? How do we increase testosterone after a loss? Losses often hit us hard. The first step is to get out of threat and protect mode, to get the stress hormones out. That means allowing people to socialize and decompress. The second part is to build back-up, to give yourself evidence that your status isn't under threat, that you are still competent. That means reminding people of their successes, of what they did right, of the hope for the future.

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​Do We Perform Better When Playing Against Our Old Team?​

What they found: Does playing against our former team fire us up? In this study, they looked at how elite basketball, hockey, and soccer players fared against their old team. They found that players tended to take more shots, score more, but have fewer assists. So while they played better, they did so in a particular direction; they were more aggressive and action orientated. Interestingly, the effect was more pronounced during away games, or when they essentially felt slighted by their former team (i.e. insufficient playing time, lower wage offer). Similarly, how recently a player left the old team and how long they played there also influenced the magnitude of the effect.

So What? Motivation is complicated. But this research provides some important nuance and context. When we play our former team, it often causes us to have a heightened emotional response. It feels personal. We want to prove them wrong. That emotional energy can be beneficial. It makes us more aggressive. We take more shots. But, it also makes us more selfish. We're less likely to make the pass, and more likely to take the shot. There's always tradeoffs. As a coach and athlete, the key is to harness this effect. To take advantage of the emotion, but to not let it delude you into a selfish mess of a player who aims for personal gain at the expense of the team.

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​For Health and Fitness: High or Low Intensity?​

What they found: If you live in the health and performance state, you'll see a constant back and forth on whether we should do hard interval workouts (High-intensity) or relatively moderate, easy, longer workouts? It's the zone 2 vs. HIIT debate. The answer is, of course, both have their place, but a recent meta-analysis looked at the impact of each on cardiorespiratory fitness in older adults. What did they find? Well, either will do. There were some non-significant trends, but overall, both types of exercise did just about as well.

So What? When it comes to general fitness, the first and most important rule is this: do the exercise that you can sustain over the long haul. Too often, we try to optimize, acting like we are training for the Olympic 5k final, when that's not reality. Long and slow, short and fast, everything in between works! Sure if you are training to perform at an event, we need to tailor the training to those demands. But, even when it comes to performing, we've got a century worth of trends in endurance training that show elite athletes have made it to the top slightly favoring either side of the spectrum. But, most have a nice mix. The same goes for health. Forget zone 2 or HIIT, just get moving.

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​Our Eyes Tell Us If We Quit or Persist.​

When we’re pursuing a goal, what makes us keep giving effort, versus throwing in the towel? Psychologists Mark Gilzenrat and colleagues at Princeton thought that the key might be in a unique place: our eyes. The diameter of our pupil correlates well with the release of norepinephrine, the close cousin to the more commonly known adrenaline. There are two kinds of norepinephrine responses: our baseline level, and small hits that are in response to information in the environment. Think of it as our general level of alertness, plus a temporary burst that nudges us towards focusing on whatever demands our attention. Gilzenrat believed that as pupil diameter changed, and subsequently levels of norepinephrine, so would an individual’s state and behavior. The eyes would give away whether we are trying or resigning.

The psychologists put a group of students through a game, where each correct answer netted them a financial reward. As the game went on, it got harder and harder to succeed. At any given time, the students could push a button next to them, that essentially reset the difficulty back to easy. The downside? Their reward plummeted with that reset. As the difficulty increased, the pupils dilated indicating rising norepinephrine levels, and engagement followed suit. But, as success became more and more fleeting, the researchers found that they could predict when that reset button would be pushed: when the eyes indicated that baseline norepinephrine was very high, but the acute hits were weak. We feel alert, or maybe even anxious, but we lose that burst of neurochemicals to focus us of the goal in front of us. We disengage.

According to this theory, the norepinephrine system “regulates decisions on task engagement vs. disengagement, based on trade-offs between task rewards vs. its costs.” When the benefit is higher than the cost, our norepinephrine system shifts us to a state where we are locked in, focused on the task at hand, picking up information that supports our pursuit, and suppressing anything that might tell us otherwise. When the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, the norepinephrine system shifts, pushing us towards disengagement and moving our attention to broad or distracted. The costs are too high, so we search for anything else that may be worth paying attention to. Or as, the researchers at Princeton found, the costs-benefit analysis shifted us from being engaged to disengaged. From locked-in on the task, to searching for something better to do. Our eyes predict when we’re going to quit.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my random musings on the latest science and research. Expect more of the same every month. If you found this interesting, consider sharing this e-mail with a friend. And if you are that friend reading this message, sign up to get it monthly.

And let's keep the feedback coming! If you'd like to understand what the research says on a topic, send your suggestions my way. Who knows, it might be my next deep dive down the rabbit hole.

All the best,

​Steve​

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