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SyringePerformance enhancing placebos?
To what extent is cycling performance influenced by the mind? Researchers at the University of Glasgow have found that race times can be improved purely by the belief that one has used performance enhancing drugs.
The study looked at the effects of an injected placebo on endurance running performance. 15 club-level runners were told that they were being given a new performance enhancing drug called OxyRBX which was said to improve oxygen delivery to the muscles in a similar way to recombinant human erythropoietin (r-HuEPO). However, OxyRBX was in fact fictional and all they were being given was a placebo.
The runners, who all had personal best times over 10km of 39.3 minutes on average, injected the saline placebo themselves for seven days and 3km running performances were then assessed. Improvements over this period were an average of 1.2% greater than those seen following a seven-day control period.
Dr Jason Gill of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, said:
“The change in performance was of clear sporting relevance, albeit smaller than the improvement that would be produced by r-HuEPO. The placebo may work by reducing perception of effort and increasing potential motivation in line with a psychological expectation of performance.”
This is far from being the first study to examine the extent to which athletic performance is a case of mind over matter. Apparently performance-enhancing drugs can also be taken aurally.
Last year, a Taiwanese study asked students to perform a 12-minute cycling task on four separate occasions – while listening to music, while watching video, with both music and video and without either. The second part of the study then involved participants performing a running task while listening to different sorts of music.
In this case, it was found that listening to music – and in particular preferred music – increases physical performance and reduces perceived effort.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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8 comments
I know this a bit of an aside I don’t think an athlete can ever accused of cheating if they think they’re taking a performance enhancer as far as I’m aware thinking something has never been a crime.
It doesn’t matter whether they’re in competition or not there was no cheating going on.
Ben Goldacre once said the even when you know you’re taking a placebo it still works.
Do you believe everything that Ben Goldacre writes? He makes money by writing about things in a controversial way.
I am surprised too that people were willing to participate in an experiment which may have long term health risks, I remember reading about athletes dying of cardiac arrest when EPO was first being used as a performance enhancer.
Isn't that a bit harsh johndonnelly? It does not say they raced, or thought they were taking something with permanent effects? How many races could you run in seven days? All in the name of science; it proves that training your mind is as important as training your body.
The real enemies are the c**ts who have the psychological AND actual benefit of drugs
Recognising that this is an entirely different thread to axisofweasel who added specific context that would trump these observations.
Are we saying there is a moral* distinction between believing you've taken drugs but not having done so, and believing you've taken drugs but not having done so? I can see a legal distinction but think that morality is generally about intent.
*Once again I'm making assumptions - here that being a cunt is a moral assessment.
Yes, it was deliberately a little harsh given the short test, but out of season testing is conducted because athletes were using drugs to enable a greater training load - an indirect rather than direct effect on competition.
I think there is a typo there!
But if you mean what I think you mean then yes, there is a difference! In my opinion of course.
Isn't it more interesting how easy* it is to find decent amateur athletes who think it is OK to take a performance enhancing drug - albeit one that hadn't been banned yet.
*I'm making a big assumption here, but they don't state how many people were invited to join the trial, or whether they excepted themselves from competition during and after the trial.
Yes you are making a fairly large assumption.
Athletes were invited to take part in the study on the proviso they weren't competing during the trial.
So therefore no it was not very easy to find trained athletes who could do it. Hence why the the practical work has been going on for years.
It has nothing to do with trying performance enhancing drugs and a lot more to do with the free V02 max tests.
Before you jump to assumptions and make a fool of yourself over such things it's maybe worth looking at the sheer amount of ethical approval needed for these projects. Many projects are funded and authorised by WADA themselves.
P.S. I was one of the lab rats.
axisofweasel - this is exactly why I called out my own assumptions. I don't think it is foolish to explore alternate information that can be gleaned.
Thank you for adding context that was not available in the abstract of the paper referenced.