The scheduled clash between NFL heavyweights, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams, at the MCG today marks the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Australia.
While fans focus on star players and game plans, sports scientists are paying closer attention to a different tactic entirely: how each team has chosen to manage the enormous challenge of travelling nearly 12,750 kilometres across a 17-hour time difference.
The two NFL teams have adopted dramatically different strategies. The 49ers arrived in Melbourne almost a week before kick-off, allowing time to adjust to local conditions. The Rams, meanwhile, have opted for a rapid “in-and-out” approach, arriving little more than 24 hours before the game.
To understand the science behind the contrasting approaches, we asked three Victorian Institute of Sport experts, Dr Emily Meehan (Nutrition Manager), Dr Lachlan Mitchell (Assistant Manager, Physiology) and Will Morgan (General Manager, Performance Support), to analyse the advantages, risks and performance implications.
The Great Travel Debate: Adapt or Stay on Home Time?
For elite athletes, international competition creates a delicate balance between recovering from travel and adapting to a new time zone.
According to Dr Lachlan Mitchell, the decision is essentially about managing two competing factors: circadian rhythm disruption and travel fatigue.
“Travelling west is generally easier to manage than travelling east,” Dr Mitchell explains. “It’s easier to stay up later than it is to wake up earlier. Athletes typically recover more quickly when travelling westward, and because Los Angeles is effectively 17 hours behind Melbourne, the challenge can be viewed as a seven-hour time shift forward.”
The 49ers have taken what Dr Mitchell describes as the more traditional high-performance approach. Arriving approximately seven days before competition allows almost a full day of adaptation for every hour of time difference, providing athletes with the opportunity to adjust their body clocks, recover from travel, establish healthy sleep patterns and prepare in local conditions.
The downside? They will be required to perform at 10:35am Melbourne time, significantly earlier than the typical NFL game window.
The Rams have chosen the opposite strategy.
“The LA Rams will be able to prepare at home in familiar surrounds,” says Will Morgan. “For a team of this size, with large numbers of athletes and staff, the logistical challenge of relocating for a week is substantial.”
Why Game Time Matters
One of the most notable aspects of the match is the scheduled start time.
The game will begin at 10:35am in Melbourne, which corresponds to 5:35pm in California, almost exactly within the late-afternoon performance window that many athletes naturally favour.
Dr Mitchell notes that late afternoon is generally an excellent window for both physical and cognitive performance.
“Keeping athletes operating on a body clock that still feels like 5:35pm makes sense from a performance perspective,” he says.
That timing may be one of the biggest advantages of the Rams’ strategy. While they must deal with the immediate impacts of long-haul travel, they are effectively avoiding the challenge of competing at what their bodies perceive to be an unusually early hour.
The 49ers, meanwhile, gain the benefits of adaptation and recovery but must ensure athletes are ready to perform near peak levels early in the morning.
Dr Mitchell believes this creates an intriguing tactical element. If fatigue affects the Rams, the 49ers may look to increase game tempo or introduce more complex decision-making scenarios, potentially exposing any cognitive effects of travel.
Conversely, if the Rams execute their strategy successfully, they may benefit from being closer to their ideal physical performance window.
The Critical Role of Sleep, Nutrition and Hydration
While travel strategy attracts attention, all three VIS experts agree that success ultimately hinges on getting the fundamentals right.
Dr Emily Meehan believes sleep is the single most important factor.
“Sleep influences recovery, cognitive function, mood and physical performance,” she explains. “Nutrition and hydration then support recovery by helping athletes maintain energy availability, carbohydrate stores and fluid balance.”
Crossing multiple time zones disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm, affecting more than sleep alone.
Hunger patterns, digestion and meal timing can all become misaligned with competition demands.
For the 49ers, the challenge is adapting to local routines while managing life on the road, including unfamiliar foods, disrupted eating habits, hotel environments and additional physical activity away from their usual routine.
The Rams face a different set of issues.
“They’ll have less time for their appetite and eating patterns to shift to Melbourne time,” Meehan says. “The challenge for them is managing travel fatigue and disrupted sleep while maintaining their normal competition fuelling routine.”
Hydration is another significant consideration. Extended long-haul flights can increase dehydration risk through low cabin humidity and increased respiratory water loss. However, Meehan notes that well-planned hydration strategies can largely mitigate these concerns.
What Would the VIS Experts Do?
When asked which strategy they would personally choose for a 12,750-kilometre trip, Morgan sided with the Rams.
He points to examples in Formula One, where teams travelling from Europe to the Singapore Grand Prix sometimes remain on their home time zone to reduce disruption and minimise jet lag upon their return.
“Personally, I prefer the in-and-out approach of the Rams,” Morgan says. “They can prepare at home, play at a normal time in their own time zone and quickly return with minimal jet lag.”
He is also quick to remind observers that NFL teams travel under vastly different conditions than most athletes.
“The players won’t be crammed into economy class seats. They’ve chartered an entire Airbus A380 and will have structured their travel around performance.”
Mitchell also leans towards the Rams, citing the potential physical performance advantage of remaining closer to their normal competition rhythm.
Lessons for Australian Athletes
There are valuable lessons to take from both approaches.
Dr Meehan says there is no universal formula for international travel.
“The timing of travel, direction of travel, competition schedule and individual responses must all be considered,” she explains.
Successful international performance requires detailed planning around sleep, nutrition, hydration and training. Just as importantly, athletes should practise these strategies well before major events.
“The Olympics or a world championship aren’t the places to discover you can’t tolerate an early breakfast, don’t sleep well in hotels or struggle with unfamiliar foods,” Meehan says.
Morgan agrees, highlighting that high performance often comes down to controlling every factor within an athlete’s influence.
“This shows there are many ways to maximise performance,” he says. “There are still plenty of opportunities to think creatively and adopt a high-performance mindset.”
Where the Experts Land
The science suggests both approaches can work.
The 49ers have prioritised adaptation, recovery and local acclimatisation. The Rams have prioritised familiarity, maintaining their body clock and minimising disruption before returning home.
But when asked which travel strategy they would personally choose for such a trip, all three VIS experts landed on the same side.
