Perception in sport: are we asking the right questions?

There has never been a better time to be a sport scientist; true there is more competition than ever for jobs however for those in gainful employment there is a wealth of information to consider in the pursuit of enhancing performance. Practitioners attached to more affluent organisations may have access to GPS technology or sophisticated equipment that allows them to monitor a range of physiological responses.  For those who do not have the advantage (or hindrance depending in your perspective) of a bottomless budget there is the more traditional paper and pen techniques, such as ratings of perceived exertion and scales that assess an athletes 'wellness' and readiness to train.  Plenty it would seem to keep us busy!

When we consider commonly used questionnaires in sport science however there appears to be a general trend to ‘nudge’ athletes in a certain direction, that of assuming a level of fatigue or sensations that would inhibit rather than enhance performance.  How many validated scales can you think of which require athletes to rate their level of ‘soreness’, ‘fatigue’ or ‘stress’, all negative connotations.  The way we frame questions and present information, known as priming, can significantly influence subsequent actions and therefore warrants consideration.  For example, asking people whether they are going to vote prior to an election increases turnout whilst suggesting that the majority of people pay their taxes has a positive effect on the return of honest income returns (we all, it would seem, want to fit in and be part of the crowd). 

With this in mind we may question why so many scales for monitoring the response of athletes to training use such negative terms, especially when the objective is to maximise exposure to training and practises that enhance technical, tactical and physical prowess.  What we are essentially saying is, 'we know there must be a level of soreness, stress and fatigue, we just need you to tell us how much'.  It is not hard to see how questioning of this nature may persuade an athlete who feels good that there is a degree of fatigue which they were hitherto unaware of.  Perhaps if these questions were redefined in terms of muscle strength, happiness and freshness we may get different results and feel compelled to interpret the data in a different way.  Although there is a need for a process of validation, is it time to adopt scales and questionnaires that ask athletes to tell us how good they feel rather than how bad they feel?

Thanks to colleagues at the SFA for the idea behind this blog.