Carbohydrate mouth rinse improves performance of mentally fatigued cyclists despite null effects on psychological responses.

Mental fatigue reduces exercise performance through an impaired psychological response such as increased perceived exertion. Carbohydrate (CHO) mouth rinses improve exercise performance and perceived exertion likely due to an improved activation in cerebral reward areas, then we investigated if the CHO mouth rinse-improved exercise performance in mentally fatigued individuals was associated with ameliorated reward-related psychological responses. We hypothesised that CHO mouth rinse would be beneficial for mentally fatigued cyclists mainly in high-metabolic disturbance intensities.

No Evidence of Postactivation Performance Enhancement on Endurance Exercises: A Comprehensive Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Purpose: Narrative reviews have suggested that postactivation induced by warm-up routines is effective to increase endurance exercise performance in real-world scenarios. However, systematic reviews with meta-analysis rather than narrative ones are required to provide an up-to-date summary of the evidence and provide directions for practical decisions. Therefore, we systematically reviewed peer-reviewed and gray literature to determine the certainty of evidence and the relative effects of postactivation performance enhancement (PAPE) in endurance exercises.

Ice Massage on the Calf Improves 4-km Running Time Trial Performance in a Normothermic Environment.

Local cooling with ice massage is a practical and inexpensive technique to decrease perceptual stress and improve motor performance in hot environments. However, it is unknown whether local cooling with ice massage reduces perceptual responses to exercise and improves performance in a normothermic environment. Thus, we investigated whether ice massage on the calf muscles before a 4 km running time trial (TT) reduced the ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and perceived muscle pain, thereby improving exercise performance in a normothermic environment.

Proof-of-Concept and Test-Retest Reliability Study of Psychological and Physiological Variables of the Mental Fatigue Paradigm.

This study provided a proof-of-concept and test-retest reliability of measures frequently used to assess a mental fatigue paradigm. After familiarization, 28 healthy men performed (40-min) the Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP) test in a test-retest design, having mental fatigue sensation, motivation, emotional arousal, total mood disturbance, and electroencephalography (EEG) in the prefrontal cortex measured before and after the test. EEG was recorded during a 3-min rest so that the power spectral density of theta (3-7 Hz) and alpha (8-13 Hz) bands was calculated.

Effects of experimentally induced muscle pain on endurance performance: A proof-of-concept study assessing neurophysiological and perceptual responses.

Pain arising from exercise potentiates fatigue and impairs the performance of endurance exercise. We assessed neurophysiological and perceptual responses to endurance exercise performed under experimentally induced muscle pain by a model that separates muscle pain from muscle fatigue. After a series of pilot studies investigating different hypertonic saline volumes, 17 healthy males performed a preliminary VO test before performing a familiarization of the cycling time-to-exhaustion exercise (80% of the peak power output in the VO test).

Carbohydrate Mouth Rinse Mitigates Mental Fatigue Effects on Maximal Incremental Test Performance, but Not in Cortical Alterations.

Detrimental mental fatigue effects on exercise performance have been documented in constant workload and time trial exercises, but effects on a maximal incremental test (MIT) remain poorly investigated. Mental fatigue-reduced exercise performance is related to an increased effort sensation, likely due to a reduced prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation and inhibited spontaneous behavior. Interestingly, only a few studies verified if centrally active compounds may mitigate such effects.

Caffeine Increased Muscle Endurance Performance Despite Reduced Cortical Activation and Unchanged Neuromuscular Efficiency and Corticomuscular Coherence.

The central and peripheral effects of caffeine remain debatable. We verified whether increases in endurance performance after caffeine ingestion occurred together with changes in primary motor cortex (MC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation, neuromuscular efficiency (NME), and electroencephalography-electromyography coherence (EEG-EMG coherence). Twelve participants performed a time-to-task failure isometric contraction at 70% of the maximal voluntary contraction after ingesting 5 mg/kg of caffeine (CAF) or placebo (PLA), in a crossover and counterbalanced design.