Ahead of last year’s Olympics in Rio, a study highlighted the negative impact that sporting competitions that are held at night can have on athletes’ performance and even well being. Still, sporting events are going to continue to be held in the evening for prime television audiences.
A new study released by the University of Basel in Switzerland has now found that athletes who are exposed to blue light before competing can significantly increase their performance in the final moments of competition at night. The study, which was published in the academic journal, Frontiers in Physiology, sought to figure out if light exposure before a cycling time trial event, could compensate for late night competition.
The study focused on 74 male athletes who were within the top 10 percent of their age group in terms of fitness levels. They randomly divided into three groups and exposed them to either bright light, blue monochromatic light or control light for a period of an hour. The reason for using blue light was that a significant body of research has found that this type of light can suppress melatonin, a hormone which helps control sleep-wake cycles. Such blue light tends to come from electronic devices too and in fact, in a study from Harvard University, it found that blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light.
Get The Latest Sports Tech News In Your Inbox!
The researchers from the University of Basel, however, sought to test their hypothesis that a suppression of melatonin would have a positive impact on an athlete’s performance. This light exposure part of the test was immediately followed by a 12-minute cycling time trial test which was measured on a bicycle ergo meter that estimated performance based off revolutions per minute (RPM) and the resistance to pedaling.
Following this testing, the researchers concluded that exposure to blue light significantly improved athletes’ ability to increase their performance during the final section of a time trial. They measured this increase against the first and last minute of the 12-minute cycling test and outlined that the improved performance in the final spurt correlated with the amount of blue light they’d be exposed to. The believed that this light was able to suppress melatonin levels and was responsible for positively influence an athlete’s sleep-wake cycle.
In a video, Raphael Knaier from the University of Basel’s Sport, Exercise and Health Department said: “This means that evening light exposure may enable elite athletes to remain longer at high daytime performance levels.”