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Excerpt
Despite the well-documented effect of placebo treatment in clinical trials, there is little systematically collected data regarding the effect of placebo treatments on exercise performance. PURPOSE: This study was designed to determine the effect of placebo treatment on 5-km running performance. METHODS: 16 well-trained & task habituated recreational class runners (VO2peak = 58 ± 8 ml*kg−1*min−1), performed randomly ordered 5-km time trials after consuming either water (CONTROL) or water purported (falsely) to contain a new ergogenic aid (PLACEBO). In addition to deceptive labeling, the subjects viewed a video designed to promote the value of the purported ergogenic aid. Measures included total time, lap times, RPE, HR and blood lactate. RESULTS: 5-km time trial performance was competitively, but not statistically significantly (p = 0.11) faster during PLACEBO vs CONTROL (21:40 ± 2:48 vs 21:54 ± 3:20), with a competitively meaningful (2.5s) difference over the last 400m in favor of the PLACEBO. 12 of 16 subjects ran faster during the PLACEBO trial. There were no significant differences in post time trial RPE (8.2 ± 1.0 vs 8.4 ± 1.2), peak HR (177 ± 5 vs 177 ± 6 bpm). or post time trial blood lactate (12.2 ± 3.2 vs 11.4 ± 2.2 mmol*l−1). CONCLUSIONS: We conclude while there was no statistically significant difference, there was compelling evidence of a potentially competitively significant PLACEBO effect, the pattern of which was clear enough to suggest that this topic needs further investigation.
