RUN LIKE THE WIND
the media claims that a study of football coaching motivation shows that a mere instruction could be the difference between scoring a goal or being tackled. it doesn't, it didn't, & the original study was careful to say so.
original article: Moran et al., 2023 (Journal of Sports Sciences), reported in: The Times by Rhys Blakely on 3rd March 2024
this story was in episode 38 #football #motivation #coaching #run #jump
the error bar says
the Times, on the 3rd of March, claimed that "a simple simile can make a footballer run faster" & that "telling a striker to sprint 'like a jet plane taking off into the sky ahead' could be the difference between them finding the net or being beaten to the ball."
the story refers to a paper from late 2023 in the Journal of Sports Science, reporting a study done with teenage players at an elite football academy. after a short warm-up, the youths were asked to do 10 runs & 10 jumps.
before each exercise, the player was given a motivational cue such as: 'jump as high as you can' or 'focus on driving the ground back'. the cues were of five types: neutral, away from something, towards something, like the sky or up a hill, an internal cue by focussing on the legs or an external cue by focussing on pushing the ground away. each cue was given twice & the players' running speed & jump heights were recorded & compared between the five types of motivational cue.
do motivational cues make you run faster?
no.
overall, the players required about 3 seconds to run 20 metres, & jumped 35cm off the ground. the five different cues did make some small differences to the players' running speeds & their jumping heights, but the statistical differences in performance were restricted to one or two individual comparisons. the largest differences between conditions were about 90ms for the running, & about 2cm for the jumping.
while the Times reported that being told to "sprint 'like a jet plane taking off into the sky ahead'" made players faster, it didn't. the statistical difference in the paper was in the comparison between the 'internal' & 'external' conditions, neither of which involved the analogy - or simile - of a jet plane.
there was a similar, specific difference in the jump heights as well, but that - also - did not involve the analogy condition.
both the abstract of the paper & the conclusions of the scientists were measured & fair. perhaps there is a slightly over-blown press release somewhere out there, but this mis-reporting of the study seems to be entirely the journalist's error.