Effects of Inhaled Salbutamol on Sport-Specific Fitness of Non-Asthmatic Football Players

In this article,we investigated the effectiveness of inhaled salbutamol withtherapeutic dose on the sport-specific performance of non-asthmatic young football players. in a double-blinded,randomised placebo controlled trial with 2-treatment,2-period crossover design,twenty participants who were non-asthmatic junior professional football players were randomly allocated to two groups. fifteen minutes before sport-specific fitness testing,each group randomly received 2 inhalations (200 micrograms) of salbutamol or placebo,respectively. after 1 week wash-out period,each participant has tested again,this time with the alternative inhaler. the primary outcomes were the differences between salbutamol and placebo groups in six tests of 7×30-m repeated sprint,loughborough soccer dribbling,vertical jump,agility,loughborough soccer passing,20-m multistage shuttle run. a total of twenty players did two test batteries completely. there was no significant difference between salbutamol and placebo users in the tests [treatment effect (ci95%); 7×30 sprint: -2.4 (-7.6-2.9),dribbling: -3.8 (-12.2-4.5),vertical jump: -1.2 (-3.7-1.3),agility: -0.4 (-0.9-0.1),passing: 0.2 (-12-12.4),shuttle run distance: -112 (-503.2-279.2)]. furthermore,no period or carry-over effects were detected. it seems that single therapeutic dose of inhaled salbutamol (200 micrograms) does not appear to improve football related performance. © 2017 tehran university of medical sciences. all rights reserved.