A sports scientist wanted to investigate the relative physiological effects of active recovery versus cryotherapy (cold-water immersion) during intensive training.
She conducted a pilot study using an 8-station high-intensity functional fitness circuit. Nine elite athletes, matched for their baseline VO2 VO_2\,VO2 max scores, took part in the study.
All 9 athletes completed all 8 stations. During the recovery interval after each station, they underwent either active recovery (light jogging on a treadmill) or cryotherapy, or a combination of both across the session.
Each athlete was randomly allocated a letter from A to I. This letter determined how many of their 8 recovery intervals were spent in active recovery and how many were spent in cryotherapy, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: The number of recovery intervals spent in active recovery and cryotherapy for each athlete (labelled A – I)
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active recovery intervals | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Cryotherapy intervals | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
Outline one benefit of randomly allocating the athletes to these different recovery combinations as shown in Table 1.
Practise AQA A Level Psychology Scientific processes with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 689 questions, matched to the AQA A Level Psychology (7182) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.
