Martin Bingisser

Sports Science Quarterly – Q3 2025

/by

Every quarter we take a deep dive into the latest research in sports science. In this edition we look at the latest research on wellness the placebo effect, talent transfer in sport, gait retraining, velocity-loss and strength training adaptations, predicting ACL injuries, and nutrient timing.

As always, the full Sports Science Quarterly is available exclusively to HMMR Plus Members. You can browse the past topics on our archive page. The first topic below is free to everyone, but sign up now to read about all the latest research. To get an idea of what Sports Science Quarterly is all about, the April 2016 edition is available in its entirety for free.

This Quarter’s Topics

Open-label placebos hormesis

Quick Summary – Placebos—particularly open-label placebos where participants know they’re not receiving an active substance—have been shown to improve performance and symptoms in both medical and sports settings, likely due to psychological priming and expectation. A recent study found that open-label placebos improved 1-km cycling time trial performance in female athletes, with nearly 40% of participants experiencing a meaningful performance boost. These findings highlight the powerful influence of mindset and environment on performance, suggesting that coaches should pay close attention to their language and emotional cues when working with athletes.

Placebos are widely used in scientific research, because they allow for the creation of a control group; a group that think they are receiving a given intervention (such as medication), but are actually just receiving something simple and inert, like a sugar pill. Over the years, researchers have noticed something surprising; participants who are in the placebo group of scientific studies often experience an effect similar to the intervention group. Taking a sports science example, we might randomise athletes into two groups; one group consumes caffeine tablets, and the other consumes sugar tablets that look exactly the same as the caffeine tablets. We know that caffeine improves performance, and so it’s no surprise when the group receiving caffeine pills improve their performance, but often athletes in the placebo group also see a performance improvement. In some cases, this performance enhancement is of the same magnitude as athletes in the group who took caffeine pills.

This is interesting, and could potentially be very useful—if an athlete thinks they are taking something that enhances their performance, it may not matter whether or not they are actually taking the substance, which can be handy if there are unpleasant side effects. It’s also quite ethically challenging, because the use of placebos requires deliberate deception on the part of the person providing them, which can also harm trust. This has led to the idea of “open label” placebos, where participants are deliberately told that they are receiving a placebo. This has been utilised in medical studies exploring lower back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and depression. Interestingly, even when participants know they are receiving a placebo, they appear to experience an improvement in symptoms when compared to those in the group that receive nothing. This response isn’t always present, and it’s not always present in the same person at different time points, but it’s sufficiently interesting to be explored further.

And that’s where our next study comes in. Here, the authors looked to investigate the effect of an open-placebo on 1-km cycling time trial performance. Twenty-eight female participants were recruited, all with at least 1 year’s cycling experience. The participants were randomised to either a control group (no open-placebo), or the open-placebo group, who received a 5-minute talk on the possible benefits of open placebo in sport. After this, they were given two red-and-white placebo capsules, which contained 100mg of flour, which they consumed 15 minutes prior to the 1-km cycling time trial. The two groups then switched, such that each participant did a 1-km cycle time trial in both the control and open-placebo groups.

The results showed that, compared to the control conditions, the use of open placebos improved time to completion in the 1km-time trial, along with an improvement in mean power output. On average, the open placebo improved performance by 0.7 seconds, which is above the smallest worthwhile effect value for this test. Overall, 39% of the participants experienced a positive response from the open-label placebo. This is lower than in clinical studies utilising open-label placebo in place of medication, which typically report relief rates of closer to 60%, but it does still suggest that open-label placebos may be of use in sport.

One proposed mechanism is that open-label placebos may be effective through the priming of the individuals receiving them to expect a positive outcome. In this study, the participants were part of an information session on the potential benefits of open-label placebo, which primed them to be ready to enhance their own performance. Previous research in sport has shown that coaches can manipulate effort through the use of their language, and athlete performance can be improved by showing them pictures of happy faces, and reduced by showing them pictures of sad faces, even if they are shown these pictures so quickly that their brains don’t register them. For me, this all serves to highlight the role the environment can play in athlete performance, and that our role, as coaches, is to provide athletes with an environment in which they can best perform, which we can influence through aspects such as language, facial expressions, etc. As such, coaches need to consistently be aware of how they are presenting to athletes, both in training and competition, as their mood and words can both harm and support performance. For open-label placebos, I think the research needs to continue, but for now they are giving us some really good insight into how the brain interprets different inputs to support (or hurt) performance.

Talent transfer in sport: an introductory overview

Quick Summary – Talent transfer is an increasingly recognised approach in elite sport that involves moving high-performing athletes from one sport to another—often with lower complexity or later peak age—to maximise existing physical and psychological attributes while reducing overall talent wastage. Case studies and research show that, when supported by quality coaching, deliberate programming, and high-performance infrastructure, athletes can reach elite levels in a short timeframe, although the success rate remains relatively low. Psychological resilience, motivation, and previous elite experience are critical factors in determining which athletes are most likely to thrive in talent transfer environments.

Join Now to Keep Reading

This is just the beginning. To continue reading this article you must be a HMMR Plus member. Join now to get access to this and more content. Learn more and sign up here. If you are already a member, log in here.