Jet lag is a well-documented physiological condition that is caused by disruption of the circadian rhythm due to travel across time zones. In sport, traveling to another continent across a large number of time zones has obvious effects on your circadian rhythm, but even traveling across two or three time zones can cause disruption and reduced athletic performance. Anecdotally, it is generally agreed that it is easier for sports teams to move west than east. Two important studies examining the performance of Major League Baseball and National Football League teams both support and contradict this rule of thumb. Although studies on jet lag and its effects on athletic performance have not always painted a clear picture, there appears to be a quantitative importance of jet lag and travel on athletic performance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay When an East Coast NFL team traveled west and played an away game against a West Coast team at 8 p.m. Eastern time or later Late, the West Coast team had a clear advantage. The study by researchers from Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and UC San Diego found that in 293 games, West Coast teams beat the point spread by an average of 5.26 points in those games. confrontations. In daytime matches between the two similarly situated teams, researchers found no significant advantage for either team. In a similar study using MLB teams, West Coast teams moving east had a higher winning percentage than East Coast teams moving west. Researchers analyzed games played over 10 seasons and West Coast teams had a winning percentage of 0.530 when traveling east, compared to a winning percentage of 0.509 for East Coast teams traveling east. 'west. On the other hand, the individual performances of major league baseball players were the opposite. to winning percentages. A study of more than 40,000 MLB games over 20 years found that individual performance was worse when teams traveled from west to east. This was not only true for West Coast teams traveling east, but also for East Coast teams returning from a West Coast road trip. The study found that most of the negative effects of jet lag on individual performance revolved around statistics related to baserunning, such as stolen bases, extra base hits and number of double plays made. Another important finding is that home teams experiencing jet lag were worse off in terms of offensive performance, particularly home runs. Jet-lagged pitchers performed worse for home and away teams that traveled east. It's common for MLB teams to sit their starting catcher in the day game after a night game, but we could start to see more roster changes depending on the time difference. data. Dr. Ravi Allada, one of the authors of the MLB study, recommends that teams send starting pitchers to the venue of the away game several days in advance to adjust their internal clock to the time zone local. Unlike the players of.