Jet lag in the NFL and other US sports?

B_Sharp

I was just curious as to whether jet lag is ever mentioned as a cause for poor performance in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL?

You often hear about the 'European Hangover' in relation to soccer teams in the Champions League and US teams can travel similar distances.

Even if the different divisions limit the distances travelled, is it mentioned during the play-offs?

adrian522

I I'd for West coast teams, if they play on the early slot their body clocks are at 10am and their record is terrible.

kmart6

No, it doesn't get mentioned in the Playoffs. These guys travel in luxury compared to normal people. It's part and parcel of the game and they don't go on about it! Not like football teams here moaning about a 2/3 hour flight!

adrian522

Well the seahawks had to play very early last week probably had an impact, this will week it's not an issue as the games are later..

LuckyLloyd

Yes, it's an issue and it does get mentioned over the course of a season. Dome teams playing away on grass as the season wears on is also a real factor in games. This stuff tends to get overlooked to a small extent as far as betting lines are concerned. The Giants playing away in Oakland for example (or vice versa) are going to find things much tougher than form, ability and matchups alone may have it. The trip is long enough that it can knock out a day's preparation, and if the team flies over early to compensate for that then it's an extra night or two in a hotel environment which isn't ideal.

A textbook example of all of this was the Seattle / New Orleans playoff game in January 2011. Seattle were huge dogs for a home team in the playoffs, but the Saints had a long journey and were a dome team playing in a racous cold weather environment. The line should have been much tighter at kickoff than it was.

davyjose

Jat lag doesn't refer to how far you've travelled. It's caused solely by how many time zone changes you've made. Which can screw up your circadian rhythms (body-clock). In terms of the effects of time zone changes and jet lag on the human body, it seems three hours is about the max zone change we can take before it starts to fcuk up our body clocks. But as Kmart said, these guys are flying in luxury, staying in 5 star hotels and the like, so they are NOT suffering from jet lag. Or a veeeerrryyy small degree of it which would be rectified after a nights sleep.

The disadvantage of far away road games is that they don't have the creature comforts of being at home, of playing on turf they are accustomed to etc. And 5 hour flights still would not be considered ideal preparation.

Richard Hillman

The teams usually arrive the day before the game and fly out the night of the game. With games in winter time, its usually dark anyway so there is no real effect on their body clocks particularly later in the season. I dont think the time is sufficient enough to really effect them.

In terms of football, they will come up with any excuse for not winning, the ref, the pitch, the game previous etc. Its everyones elses fault apart from themselves for losing.

LuckyLloyd

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The teams usually arrive the day before the game and fly out the night of the game. With games in winter time, its usually dark anyway so there is no real effect on their body clocks particularly later in the season. I dont think the time is sufficient enough to really effect them.

In terms of football, they will come up with any excuse for not winning, the ref, the pitch, the game previous etc. Its everyones elses fault apart from themselves for losing.

Statistics over a large sample size demonstrate that coastal teams flying across the country to play road games have records worse than the average road expectation. They also demonstrate that Dome teams have issues playing out door cold weather games. It may not be valid to blame an individual loss on these things, but this stuff does have a genuine affect. Flying across the country is tough.

Neil3030

Remember that the day of a game doesn't start at kick-off time. You want to be packing nutrition into players 2-3 hours before kick-off, so for a noon kick-off, east-coast, for a west-coast team, that's like sitting down to a pretty sizeable meal at 6a.m.

Sort of on topic, but I know David Haye used to always train, starting around 7 in the evening (local time of wherever he was fighting) so his body would peak at the time of the scheduled fight.

davegrohl48

The European hangover in soccer I always took more to mean the tiring effect of playing a top quality European side on a Wednesday night and then having to play a premier league match on a Saturday or Sunday.
Seeing as it would be an important match teams would be playing a full strength side. Then if you are playing an upper half of the table team on a Saturday/Sunday you have to play most of those players again.
They arrive home to England Thursday early hours. They might have agame Saturday 1pm, but I think generally it would be scheduled Sunday. But still that is a very short recovery gap for a sport with an exhaustive effort over 90 minutes.
I never really have heard many people mention timezones or flying as being the cause.