Application of Decision-Making Theory to the Regulation of Muscular Work Rate during Self-Paced Competitive Endurance Activity

Abstract

Successful participation in competitive endurance activities requires continual regulation of muscular work rate in order to maximise physiological performance capacities, meaning that individuals must make numerous decisions with regards to the muscular work rate selected at any point in time. Decisions relating to the setting of appropriate goals and the overall strategic approach to be utilised are made prior to the commencement of an event, whereas tactical decisions are made during the event itself. This review examines current theories of decision-making in an attempt to explain the manner in which regulation of muscular work is achieved during athletic activity. We describe rational and heuristic theories, and relate these to current models of regulatory processes during self-paced exercise in an attempt to explain observations made in both laboratory and competitive environments. Additionally, we use rational and heuristic theories in an attempt to explain the influence of the presence of direct competitors on the quality of the decisions made during these activities. We hypothesise that although both rational and heuristic models can plausibly explain many observed behaviours in competitive endurance activities, the complexity of the environment in which such activities occur would imply that effective rational decision-making is unlikely. However, at present, many proposed models of the regulatory process share similarities with rational models. We suggest enhanced understanding of the decision-making process during self-paced activities is crucial in order to improve the ability to understand regulation of performance and performance outcomes during athletic activity.

Pacing profiles and pack running at the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships

“…As in previous research on other endurance events (e.g. de Koning et al, 2011;Hanley, 2013), this indicates that athletes experienced a positive affective response (Renfree et al, 2014) by knowing they were nearing the finish and thus were able to produce a fast finish despite fatigue. However, many athletes might not be overly fatigued by 15 km, and instead it is possible that some deliberately slowed between 15 and 20 km to try to run below their critical speed (i.e.…”

“…In addition, a quick pace might be adopted at the start because the athletes' rating of perceived exertion (RPE) is less than anticipated (because they are not yet fatigued or because of race excitement) (de Koning et al, 2011;Renfree et al, 2014), or because they simply do not know how well they will run on that particular occasion and decide to try for their best possible performance. The second part of this study that investigated packing behaviour showed that the lead group typically contained a substantial number of runners at 5 km; however, most athletes running in packs at this distance were not actually in the lead group, and the slower groups of athletes were already slower than the faster athletes by 5 km.…”

“…The most important finding was that those athletes who ran in packs for practically the whole race (the ever-present and nomadic packs) slowed the least relative to their opening 5 km pace, and the ever-present packs were the only ones to run the final 1.1 km at a greater mean speed than that of their first 5 km. The smaller reductions in pace and faster finish for the ever-present packs was possibly because the athletes were able to use each other as pacemakers (Renfree et al, 2014), which might have occurred as the race progressed or have been pre-planned (many of the ever-present packs contained athletes from the same nation, and two comprised sets of twins). Hence, there might be an advantage of running in packs to achieve an even pace, either through staying with the same athletes throughout, or by moving between packs (by catching up to others, or slowing down to be absorbed by a chasing group).…”

Self-paced exercise in hot and cool conditions is associated with the maintenance of %V̇o2peak within a narrow range

“…In recent years, considerable focus has been placed on developing models to describe the regulation of pacing and performance during time trial efforts (1,8,33,34,41,45,46). These models have proposed that performance is modulated to various extents by 1) the conscious awareness of physiological disturbances (e.g., afferent feedback from cardiorespiratory responses), which evoke behavioral adjustments in work rate, and by 2) the subconscious anticipation of potentially harmful challenges to homeostasis (e.g., heat storage), which downregulate muscle recruitment in a feedforward manner to avoid catastrophic system failure.…”

Deception has no acute or residual effect on cycling time trial performance but negatively effects perceptual responses

“…3,4 Therefore, by manipulating the performance feedback that athletes receive, the importance of these expectations can be examined. 5 Previous deception studies have demonstrated that pacing strategy and performance are largely unaffected by the provision of incorrect performance feedback during self-paced cycling time trials (TT).…”