Abstract

Money has frequently been used as an extrinsic motivator since it is assumed that humans are willing to invest more effort for financial reward. However, the influence of a monetary reward on pacing and performance in trained athletes is not well-understood. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyse the influence of a monetary reward in well-trained cyclists on their pacing and performance during short and long cycling time trials (TT). Twentythree cyclists (6 ♀, 17 ♂) completed 4 self-paced time trials (TTs, 2 short: 4 km and 6 min; 2 long: 20 km and 30 min); in a randomized order. Participants were separated into parallel, non-randomized “rewarded” and “non-rewarded” groups. Cyclists in the rewarded group received a monetary reward based on highest mean power output across all TTs. Cyclists in the non-rewarded group did not receive a monetary reward. Overall performance was not significantly different between groups in short or long TTs (p > 0.48). Power output showed moderatly lower effect sizes at comencement of the short TTs (Pmeandiff = 36.6 W; d > 0.44) and the 20 km TT (Pmeandiff = 22.6 W; d = 0.44) in the rewarded group. No difference was observed in pacing during the 30 min TT (p = 0.95). An external reward seems to have influenced pacing at the commencement of time trials. Participants in the non-rewarded group adopted a typical parabolic shaped pattern, whereas participants in the rewarded group started trials more conservatively. Results raise the possibility that using money as an extrinsic reward may interfere with regulatory processes required for effective pacing.

RAS ID

25643

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

9-29-2017

Funding Information

SS was supported by a short-term research grant funded by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)

School

School of Exercise and Health Sciences

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

Frontiers Media S.A.

Comments

Skorski, S., Thompson, K. G., Keegan, R. J., Meyer, T., & Abbiss, C. R. (2017). A monetary reward alters pacing but not performance in competitive cyclists. Frontiers in Physiology, 8, Article 741.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2017.00741

Download

Share

 
COinS
 

Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.3389/fphys.2017.00741