Unexpected Factors That May Be Affecting Your Athletic Performance

Several commonly known factors affect athletic performance. The amount you practice and stretch before a game can either give you confidence or leave you worried about your abilities. Athletes in various competitive events spend time building muscle in the gym and getting used to game-time elements like rain and sleet (if they need to play in it).

However, there are additional, lesser-known influences that can affect athletic performance. Without you even realizing it, small habits can have a negative impact on what you bring to the field. Here are a few additional factors to consider if you want to perform at your best.

1. Not Getting Enough Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important factors for the health of athletes and Americans from all walks of life. Too often, athletes cut a few hours of sleep so they can juggle training with other parts of their lives. However, this contributes to a concept that researchers at the Sleep Foundation call, “sleep debt,” or when you need additional hours of quality sleep to be fully rested. If you need eight hours and only get six, then you have two hours of sleep debt.

However, you need more than a certain number of hours to feel rested. If you sleep poorly (waking up through the night, developing back pain from a bad mattress, etc.) then you aren’t working down your sleep debt. You could be making your sleep deficiency worse by tossing and turning.

Make a concentrated effort to improve your sleep hygiene. Consider practicing a few healthy sleep habits such as:

• Going to bed at the same time each night (or close to it).
• Stepping away from your phone screen for 30 minutes before bed.
• Avoiding eating and drinking in the two hours before bed.
• Sleeping in a cool, dark room with a comfortable mattress

Just like any form of training, these actions will take practice to develop and become part of your routine.

2. Undereating or Overeating

Food consumption also plays a significant role in your athletic performance. Your diet needs to provide you with enough energy to complete your workouts or feel strong on the field — without making you sluggish.

Multiple moving parts come with keeping a balanced diet. If you cut your calories because you want to lose weight, it could impact your athletic performance. If you enjoy heavy family meals during the holidays (and piles of homemade goodies) then you could have a harder time when you return to training. The portions, frequency of your meals, and the time you eat all impact your athletic ability.

This isn’t to say that you can’t indulge. However, try to maintain consistent eating habits for most of the year and forgive yourself when you enjoy a decadent birthday dinner and then feel slow the next day.

3. Time Spent Sitting

Americans live in an increasingly sedentary society. Students sit throughout their lessons and many people sit at desks during the workday. Researchers are starting to look into how all of this sitting affects the average person along with its particular impact on athletes. A few common conditions that are prevalent in people who sit too much include:

• Higher rates of obesity
• Increased blood pressure
• High blood sugar
• Abnormal cholesterol levels

Unfortunately, many athletes feel like they are exempt from these risks because they move so much. However, just because athletes work out frequently doesn’t mean they are negating the impacts of sitting. One study compared college athletes to non-athletes and found that the athletes were just as sedentary as their non-athlete counterparts.

Even taking small steps to get up throughout the day can have an impact on your physical health and can reduce the impacts of a sedentary lifestyle.

4. Impaired Vision

Impaired vision is also common in the United States. According to research by the Vision Impact Institute, three out of four people in the U.S. need corrective eyewear to see clearly. Of that, 71% of people wear glasses, and 22% wear contacts.

Many people experience slowly deteriorating vision without realizing it. Vision fades slowly — numbers might become blurry on a scoreboard or you may have a harder time reading signs from your coach. This can affect your performance and leave you frustrated during a game.

There are options to correct your vision. Many baseball players wear glasses on the field and countless athletes use contacts. Additionally, there may be more advanced options to choose from. You could even improve your vision with LASIK eye surgery. If you are worried about your vision, especially deteriorating sight, visit an eye doctor to get checked out.

5. Social Media

Social media poses one of the biggest challenges to athletes. There are several ways in which an athlete’s online presence can detract from their performance. A few examples of how coaches see social media impacting performance include:

• Reduced sleep. Athletes stay up late scrolling, posting, and commenting because they can’t put their phones down.
• Fear of missing out (FOMO). Athletes feel pressured to attend events and parties because their friends are attending them and they don’t want to miss anything cool.
• Online criticism. Fans can lob insults and harass athletes online, and even the best athletes have a hard time putting negative comments out of their heads.
• Distractions. Athletes that spend time online or play video games before an event have a harder time focusing.

While you can’t eliminate negative comments, you can set online barriers to help improve your performance. Avoid social media at night and in the hours before the game. This will help you focus your mind on your top priorities.

6. Work, News, and Other Stress

Athletic performance is mental as well as physical. Coaches often try to help athletes leave personal and emotional events off the field, but it’s not easy to banish these thoughts. An athlete who is stressed about work or is going through a personal challenge with their family will have a harder time physically.

Unfortunately, there aren’t easy solutions to stress-based problems. Athletes and coaches need to work together to understand what they can address and what is out of their control. A coach may refer an athlete to a psychologist to talk through problems or set up a period of quiet meditation to help them focus before training.

It’s impossible to eliminate every element that might negatively impact your athletic performance. The occasional poor night’s sleep or heavy meal will happen. Social media, work events, and other stressors are parts of life. However, if you can identify these problems and understand how they impact your performance, you can take steps to overcome issues and do your best.