• Question: Do you think that brain power is linked to your sport ability, and are we better at sports in very cold or very hot question

    Asked by lrugoff to Audra, Fiona, Gavin, Justin, Steve on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Gavin Devereux

      Gavin Devereux answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Hello.

      As a general rule, sporting performance tends to be most affected by hot environments. This is because our body will find it more difficult to maintain a stable internal temperature (heat generated internally when performing physical activity + the hot external environment can = trouble).

      If you’re physically active in cold environments, then our internal heat production helps against the cold external conditions, so we’re slightly better here.

      There’s quite a bit of research which has suggested that we have an automatic ‘safety switch’, which will cause us to mentally give up exercise in hot conditions before we reach dangerous internal temperatures.

      Brain function (psychologist would give a better answer here), is almost certainly linked to sporting success and failure. There’s a whole scientific discipline called sport and exercise psychology, and they try to answer questions like your one in their work.

      Best regards

    • Photo: Justin Lawley

      Justin Lawley answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      Hey good question. It is interesting to think about why we stop exercising. Some scientists argue that you always decide to quit and that you leg muscles for example when running could keep going if you were motivated to keep pushing. Interestingly, scientists have shown that if you do mental taks like say a day in school your performance decreases. But no ones knows yet if you can train your brain to increase exercise performance

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