Believing Resistance Is Modified Via Deception In A Cycling Time Trial To Exhaustion Impacts Performance

Deception has been employed to improve performance in cycling time trials to exhaustion (TTE). Purpose: This study was designed to evaluate whether deceiving participants about modifying resistance during a cycling TTE would alter performance and to determine the physiological mechanisms behind the performance changes. Methods: Participants (n = 20, height = 177.96 11.46 cm, weight = 74.86 4.52 kg, VO2 = 3.20.955 L/min, female = 6) visited the lab four times to complete four cycling TTE with resistance set at ventilatory threshold wattage. During the first visit, participants performed a VO2max test followed by a practice cycling TTE. For the subsequent three visits, participants performed a cycling TTE during which metabolic (VO2, VE, HR, RER, RR, & TV), and perceptual measurements (RPE) were recorded every 30 seconds. For the last two visits, participants were told the resistance on the bike was increased (“difficult”) or decreased (“easy”) 5%, even though the resistance was actually unchanged. Results: Participants fell into two groups: the “prove me right” group and the “prove me wrong” group. The “prove me right” group (n = 7) did what was hypothesized and went significantly longer than control (4.651.56 min) on the easy trial (5.38 2.018 min, p = 0.048) and shorter on the difficult trial (4.41 1.551 min, p = 0.40). The “prove me wrong” group (n = 10; CON = 6.70 2.82 min) went significantly longer (p = 0.019) on the easy (8.56 3.9 min, p = 7.18 X 10-4 ) and difficult (7.47 2.88 min, p = 0.019) trial. There were no significant differences observed in any end-TTE metabolic measurements or RPE for either group. Conclusion: When participants believed that the resistance was decreased, performance improved, even though end-TTE metabolic and perceptual data were unchanged, suggesting that the rate of metabolic change was decreased, potentially due to modifications in central output.