CHAPTER
13
Environmental Factors Affecting Performance
Chapter 13 - Environmental Factors Affecting Performance _________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction ________________________________________________
Here is something that might interest you. I was the first American to ever train at the Olympic Training Center in Beijing China…like in the People’s Republic of China…like in Communist Red China! Actually, getting into China is not that big of a problem, but getting any type of information out of there, especially pertaining to their sports program, is damn near impossible. I believe Frank DeFord found that out when he tried to do that article on Chinese sports for Sports Illustrated. From what I understand, they showed him absolutely nothing. When it comes to sports and the Chinese military, China is pretty well closed to the Western world. In the People’s Republic of China you need government permission just to move your bowels. I can only imagine what some people went through to get me into the Olympic Training Center, especially when you consider the fact that no other foreign athlete had ever trained in the Center, or that no foreigner had ever seen the inside of the Training Center. How was it? In contrast to the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, I’d rate it about a negative fourteen on a scale of one to ten. At best, it was a dump. I doubt seriously if you could get an American athlete to train there for any length of time. First of all, the place smelled absolutely vile, and that’s putting it mildly. You have heard the expression “It would gag a maggot.” Well, no maggot in its right mind would go in that place. It was that bad. It was also filthy dirty, the type of place where you wipe your feet when you leave. I doubt seriously if the place had ever been cleaned. Worse yet, the walls and ceiling were all painted in vomit green and there wasn’t a single light in the place that worked correctly. And this was the Training Center for the best athletes in China! A local YMCA in America would be a thousand times better. Obviously, the Chinese did not believe that the training environment had any type of impact upon performance. In my opinion, that is a mistake of significant magnitude. There is a prolific amount of research which indicates that environmental factors such as lighting, noise, colors, temperature, etc, have a significant affect upon athletic performance. The fact that the Chinese didn’t even consider such factors was rather surprising, especially in light of the fact that they were spending large sums of money to research such things as nutrition, biomechanics, equipment, computerization, etc. Just as surprising was the fact that the Chinese put little emphasis on the mental aspect of performance. In this area, the only thing they were researching with any fervor was a technique of Qigong. In short, the Chinese’s primary concerns were the athlete’s physiology. As mentioned previously, man is not just a biological machine. He is an incredibly complex living system which is a summation of genetics, biochemistry, mental processes, and social environment. In other words, there is a biological side to man’s nature, a mental side, and a social side. More significantly is the fact that these three systems interact with each other in order to develop behavior. Consequently, it should be understood that in order to gain control of our behavior, we cannot disregard any of the aforementioned systems. Athletic performance is no different. If you want to reach an optimum level of performance, you must pay attention not only to your body chemistry, but also to your psychological make-up and social environment. Of course, the Chinese are not the only ones who tend to emphasize the physical and ignore the social and psychological. Indeed, most of the countries who regularly compete on the international scene tend to overemphasize the physical. America is not much better. Although there is a wealth of information available in this
Chapter 13 - Environmental Factors Affecting Performance _________________________________________________________________________________
country on social and psychological factors and their effect on athletic performance, few coaches in America possess even a cursory understanding of such factors. As a matter of fact, I’d venture to say that most coaches and athletes in America completely ignore such factors in their training. Still, from what I saw at the Chinese Olympic Training Center, the Chinese have a long way to go just to catch up to America in respect to sports psychology, sports sociology, and other performance enhancing factors. In this chapter, we are going to look at a few of the more influential environmental aspects that can impact upon athletic performance.
Spectators and the Athlete ________________________________________________________________________
Tiger Woods freaks out because two spectators are talking quietly while he is attempting a three foot putt. Andrew Jones is outraged because the Atlanta Braves fans don’t make enough noise when their team is hitting. Allen Iverson can’t stand closed practice games, but in live competition with thousands of fans cheering like crazy he is a demon on the court. James Radcliff of the Atlanta is a precision pitcher in practice, but in game situations he can’t even find the backstop. Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens is constantly appealing to the crowd to make more noise…to become more involved in the game. Conversely, Phil Nicholson asks the crowd for quiet when he is hitting off the tee in a golf match. The question arises, “Why is there such a discrepancy in behavior and performance from athlete to athlete when spectators are involved?” In the next section, we will investigate that very question.
Spectator effect on Performance ____________________________________________________________________________________
Perhaps no socialpsychological effect is more important to athletic performance and outcome than the audience or spectator effect. The evidence is clear, for example, that there is significant advantage to playing at home in baseball, football, basketball, and ice hockey. There is also considerable research which indicates that other sports teams and individual athletes enjoy a significant advantage when playing at home. The perception of a home court advantage is especially evident in men’s collegiate basketball. Many basketball conferences have adopted the policy of sending the winners of their post season tournaments to the NCAA tournament. Thus, the conference championship has in many cases been reduced to a scramble for a home court advantage in the first round of the conference post season tournament. In professional sports, two rather well publicized examples of the home court advantage may be cited. Sports writers have coined the phrase, “Celtic Mystique,” when referring to the win-loss record of the Boston Celtics basketball franchise when playing at Boston Garden. Prior to losing game number four to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1987 NBA Finals, the Celtics had won 94 of their previous 97 games in the “friendly” Boston Garden. The 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins baseball team won 70 percent of their regular season home games. The Twins won all of their home games when they defeated the heavily favored Detroit Tigers for the American League Pennant and the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. It might be noted that the Twins won only 47% of their games on the road. While many variables might help create the home court or field advantage, none seem to be as important as the presence of a supportive audience. Determining exactly how and why presence of an audience affects athletic performance is the focus of this section. In the first part of
Spectators can affect performance.
Chapter 13 - Environmental Factors Affecting Performance _________________________________________________________________________________
the section I will address the concept of social facilitation from a theoretical perspective using noninteractive audiences. In this section I will deal with the noninteractive effects of an audience of one or more persons on athletic performance. In the section on interactive audiences, I will turn to a discussion of the interactive effects of an audience on athletic performance. It is in this section that the home court advantage and other interactive variables will be discussed in an applied or real life setting. I will attempt to bridge the gap between the theory of noninteractive audiences with the reality of interactive audiences. Wish me luck, because this is no easy task. For starters, a lot of the research in this area is primarily based on animal studies. Making a generalization or an inference from an animal to humans is a rather difficult task. As Ross Paret once said, “A mouse is not a human being. They don’t look alike, they don’t act alike, and they are not alike. Consequently, making an inference from a mouse to a human being is ridiculous.” That is an excellent point. Keep that in mind as we go through this stuff.