The Effects of Varying Doses of Orally Ingested Bee Pollen Extract Upon Total Exercise Time to Exhaustion Performance Recovery and Ratings of Perceived Exertion

The purpose of the present investigation was to study the effects of varying doses of orally ingested bee pollen extract upon (1) treadmill run time to exhaustion and (2) initial ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) . Subjects consisted of five male aerobically trained athletes with an age range of 21 - 35 years. The subjects individually volunteered for the study and were active members of a local running club, The Tidewater Striders. The bee pollen was given in three dosages (0, 1350 mg, 2700 mg). The three test periods on the treadmill consisted of six runs to exhaustion with a ten minute rest interval between runs. The RPE was obtained after 30 seconds of each run. The investigation was a repeated measures double blind placebo design. The administration of the three bee pollen dosages was counterbalanced to minimize any possible training effect. The resultant data were subjected to an analysis of variance with repeated measures. No statistically signifi­cant effect of various dosages of orally ingested bee pollen extract existed for exercise time to exhaustion or the initial RPE at the .05 level of significance. Significant F ratios did exist between trials. This fatiguing effect upon repeated performances for time to exhaustion and the initial RPE was expected.