"What would you say if I told you that there is a singular technique for improving athletic performance in just about any way you want? You want more strength, more endurance, greater pain tolerance? You name it and you can have it..." http://www.elitefts.com/education/n...e-placebo-effect-if-you-care-youll-lie-to-me/ -S
my friend lied to me about how much was on the barbell and i proceeded to bench a PB thinking it was a weight i used to press easily every week...the mind is a powerful thing to trick. When people are faced with great adversity and there is no room for failure, they can summon great strength such as lifting great loads off injured children after an accident... replicating that however is next to impossible in the gym as you need to fully engage with how the body releases adrenaline and fires all the tendons/muscles to work in favour of the lift, not against it (in order to protect itself from injury). Powerlifters will slap their faces and do all kinds of stupid things to get a rush of adrenaline but the mind still knows the reality, there is no emergency, there is no real reason to summon great strength above and beyond whats needed.... so the body will contract muscles in opposition to your lift to preserve itself and you'll be prone to failure.
Totally agree here... You'll dig this article, too, I think... http://www.elitefts.com/education/m...building-do-not-forget-what-you-already-know/ -S
I enjoyed that article. I can relate to that from the perspective of "mental" placebos rather than pill ones in academic study (for qualifications) terms.
quitw interesting but i would of liked a follow up study where the same method was employed week on week for a month. Will the same lifts be managed once the body becomes immune/acclimatized to these stimuli? Like the war torn soldier will no longer flinch when a mortar round hits a spot 50 feet away compared to the green horn who has just soiled himself and curled up into a ball. If you know the gun shot is coming, if the extra strong alcohol becomes your daily wine... you are left with the hypnosis and jabs of adrenaline. Although the body cant down regulate the production of adrenaline it on the other hand can it end up with a partly desensitised sympathetic nervous system to not stimulate the nerves that leads to the release of precursor hormones/minerals for adrenaline production? I'd also like to see the result of the mass cortisol release provoked by the shock and stress of working under such conditions? Adrenaline resistance has been linked to obesity (hammering all the ECA and fat burners is mad mcckkaaay) so it leads onto other areas but i dont see powerlifters etc being concerned about that lol
Well, I think powerlifters recognize that some techniques (like smelling salts for instance) can only be applied effectively if used occasionally. (As I mentioned in the article, this kind of study (administering drugs) isn't something you'll see done nowadays, so a training study probably won't be out anytime soon, but would interested, too. ) Overtraining can result in a depressed sympathetic hormonal response, for sure. There hasn't been much done wrt resistance training, but there does seem also be a down regulation of adrenoreceptors (and depressed cortisol response). 1. Fry AC, and Kraemer WJ. Resistance exercise overtraining and overreaching. Neuroendocrine responses. Sports medicine 23: 106-129, 1997. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9068095 2. Fry AC, Schilling BK, Weiss LW, and Chiu LZ. beta2-Adrenergic receptor downregulation and performance decrements during high-intensity resistance exercise overtraining. Journal of applied physiology 101: 1664-1672, 2006. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16888042 When you're pushing the limits (dieting in or starting to overreach) it sure does seem like it's harder to evoke an adrenal response some days, eh? -S
read through and digesting but this bit "A seasoned athlete may have considerable knowledge of a substance’s purported effects (such as in the steroid studies mentioned above), which could amplify the placebo effect (1, 22)." I have trouble with as I would have thought the effect would be less given the athletes knowledge of the limit of what peds can accomplish... esp with prior use...
This *might* be amplified according to prior response. If diet and training were poor and results crap, you might have a point, I guess. However, I would lose 3kg just thinking about tren.
The effect will depend on knowledge, your are right. (Note that the operative word in that sentence is "may.") Compare a seasoned athlete who has seen and experienced the effectiveness of a particular substance with someone who has no expectations (or expectancies). As with the caffeine placebo study (mentioned in the article): There can even be a graded "dose-response" effect depending on what one expects would happen. If you don't expect much of an effect... -S
