By Lili Cream
Jeremy McFarlane remembers his last trip to England fondly, an amazing opportunity for the young cricketer to play overseas for six months.
This amazing adventure for the then 20 year old didn’t come without some struggles however.
“There’s a lot of adjusting you have to do,” said McFarlane, “first of all it’s cold there, when we play cricket here in Australia it’s very hot. Then, there’s adjusting to the time difference.”
McFarlane stated he was happy to get some sleep for the first couple of days to recover from the jet lag before beginning his training sessions.
“It didn’t effect my game so much,” said McFarlane, “you just get used to feeling tired and you get on with it.”
Dealing with this type of fatigue is to be expected of our athletes who play internationally.
However, our West Australian athletes who travel every weekend interstate also have to deal with the effects of travel despite shorter flights and small time differences.
According to Dr. Tim Fairchild of Murdoch University, athletes perform better at home not just because of the familiarity with their ground and their crowds.
“It is the travel across time-zones which is more detrimental to their performance,” said Dr. Fairchild, “As with all people, travelling across time-zones results in jet lag. For this reason, athletes can often feel sluggish or more fatigued.”
While Dr. Fairchild also notes that the confined space and the air conditioning in flights can also effect athletes, the bigger effects are on the recovery time of a player after their match.
“Recovery from a match may be impacted given that teams often want to get back as soon as possible.”
“Hence afternoon or evening games over east are less preferred by our WA teams, given that if the game finished at 7pm and they have to race to the airport to get a 10pm flight they aren’t cooling down or rehydrating properly.”
Small changes in our technology have been helpful in the recovery process for athletes returning from games.
“Changing light emission, such as the brightness of our phones can help with adjustments to new time-zones.”
Restrictive garments, such as compression tights, can also be important for athletes who travel to avoid bruising which can turn into threatening blood clots according to Dr. Fairchild.
This advice is taken seriously by the Western Fury and Perth Scorchers cricket teams, according to batter Chloe Piparo.
“When flying home from games we wear compression tights it’s compulsory for us,” said Piparo.
While the compression tights are good for athletes recovery, it doesn’t help with transitioning between time zones.
“This weekend I fly out on Wednesday night to go over east. Thursday I’ll have training and Friday we will play. It’s not a lot of time to adjust and settle in.”
“When we’re playing at home I can sleep in my own bed and eat a good meal before I play. When we play away it’s lots of take out food and the travel just takes it out of you.”
Piparo stated that the main reason why the team doesn’t like travel is because of the fatigue they experience.
The one sure fire way for this to stop happening to teams, is for them to travel less but as long as there is interstate competitions this won’t be happening.
While physiotherapist Al Simmonds knows that there will always be time zone troubles for his clients, he suggests that athletes traveling within Australia to take a day of rest.
“The general consensus is that it will take approximately a day to shift to a new zone,” said Simmonds, “so athletes technically should be taking a day to just adjust before playing.”
While Simmonds recognises that there isn’t a whole lot of room on flights, he does suggest that an athlete gets up and moving.
“If you could find a flight that would accommodate dynamic stretching this would be ideal for recovery,” said Simmons.
Simmons also suggested to avoid blood clots that are caused from flying for athletes by making sure they wear compression tights as well as try devices to boost circulation.
