cycling - The fun of suffering

These guys have just finished a brutal winter circuit race. If established sports psychology is to be believed, they are having fun whilst engaging in an opportunity for social connections, fitness and competition. It is interesting to ponder what the response would be if, whilst bent over the handlebars gasping for breath, they were asked if they were enjoying themselves. Amongst racing cyclists there is a maxim attributed to Eddie Merckx that races are won by the rider who can suffer the most. Suffering is probably the best word to represent the physical effort required to reach a competitive level in any sport involving endurance or strength.

Embracing failure

Suffering also relates to psychic pain in pursuit of excellence in the absence of exhausting physical effort. Skill based sport requires the humility to repeatedly fail as an essential element of improving performance. In his book ‘Bounce’ Matthew Syed says, ‘progress is built upon the foundations of necessary failure’. None of this sounds like fun and it seems unlikely that money is the motivation. Professional sportspeople are paid for their work but the sacrifices they have to make over years to get that point are unrewarded. The dropout rate of aspiring professionals is huge, only a tiny percentage ever make a living out of it.

In surveys, the most common answers to what motivates people to play sport is a combination of fun, enjoyment, fitness and competition. These data are often analysed in light of social psychological theory like Self Determination Theory or Achievement Goal Theory that are foundational for sports and exercise psychology practice. These are well established theories but they are not sport specific. It is questionable whether they fully reflect the combination of effort, sacrifice and discomfort involved. Furthermore, they fail to capture any element of emotional satisfaction. The responses do not reflect the passion of the millions, for example, who attend football matches every week simply to spectate rather than compete. The shared extasy of wining or the devastation of losing is entirely vicarious. It is acceptable for a football supporter to say ‘we’ played brilliantly, without ever getting (at least legitimately) on the pitch. It begs the question are ardent football fans supporting their team for fun and enjoyment or because they feel compelled to? This is a challenging construction to capture within the confines of a psychological survey. Equally, it is a hard message that people are not cognisant of their motivations. However it may illuminate the reasons for the mismatch between prosaic explanations for motivation and the deep emotional engagement in sport.

Ancient history

Evolutionary psychology offers interesting insights into why it is so hard to express true motivation. It proffers sport developed because of the evolutionary pressures faced by ancient human ancestors to engage in small scale warfare, to choose mates or to assess the strength of others. Although now out of step with the modern cultural context, it suggest the unconscious drive to engage in these efforts has become innate and is now expressed as sport. Certainly, evidence suggests males, the principal protagonists in ancient fighting, are more likely to engage in sports where aggression, physical contact and competition are involved. The theory that males use sport to demonstrate their genetic fitness to females is less strong as the overwhelming audience numbers for men’s sport is other men. Mostly likely men are comparing others to assess threats and possibilities for making alliances.

The brain’s chemistry set

One aspect of motivation overlooked by social and evolutionary psychology comes from Affective Neuroscience. Research has identified seven fundamental human drives arising from the subcortical brain that unconditionally (without stimulus) affect behaviour focused on survival and reproduction. In particular the SEEKING system, associated with the often misappropriated neurotransmitter dopamine. Experimental evidence shows when this brain area is stimulated electrically, in the absence of influence from the neocortex, it generates a feeling of excited expectation and intense enthusiasm inspiring movement and engagement with the environment. The researchers suggest this is the fundamental driving force behind all mammalian activity. In Darwinian terms, it is proffered as the psychological and physiological mechanism that underpins the evolutionary process in all mammals. Those with the genetic material best matched to their environment are more likely to survive and, through gradation, these systems become increasingly honed over time. It seems one way this SEEKING behaviour in humans finds expression in contemporary culture is through sport
​
It is likely motivation for sport arises from a combination of brain chemistry shaped over millions of years in an adaptive evolutionary environment and finds expression in a modern social context. However, the powerful and unconscious subcortical root of intrinsic motivation requires no reward or punishment as stimulus, simply the act of being activated is satisfying. Consequently, it is unsurprising a simple answer to what really motivates such suffering in pursuit of sporting fun remains complex. 

---

Rich Smith has an MSc and a BSc in psychology, specialising in competition, motivation and affective states. He is a British Cycling qualified Level 3 Road and TT coach supporting riders nationally and internationally. He established RideFast Coaching in 2015 after being sanctioned at work for proposing a goal of 'doing away with his earthly body and becoming a glowing nimbus of pure energy'.