Does the placebo effect work for bodybuilding?

[CookingWithGas]

If you inject a bodybuilder with saline and tell him it’s steroids, will it cause him to get bulkier?

I assume this has never been done in a double-blind clinical trial because this use of steroids is illegal. So answers might have to be speculative.

[bump]

Probably at least insofar as he thinks he’s juiced, and works out that much harder to take advantage of it.

But anabolic steroids definitely have powerful effects; IIRC they actually are used for helping people recover from illnesses where they lost a lot of weight, or to treat ones that cause wasting; they’ll actually build muscle without working out due to the way they operate.

When they’re used in conjunction with lifting weights, the idea is that they help the person’s muscles recover and grow much faster than the natural hormones would. So they’re not magic in the sense of “take steroids, get huge” automatically, they still have to work out. What they do is allow your athlete/bodybuilder to work out more often/harder, and also grow your muscles past where they’d normally stop growing.

So I don’t think that there’s really much of a placebo effect except the one I listed in my first sentence.

[dolphinboy]

One question is can a body builder get bulkier without steroids? The answer is yes. Steroids only increase the amount of bulkiness. Can a body builder get this extra bulkiness without steroids by using a placebo? I doubt it. That’s magical thinking, unless he is subconsciously working out harder than he normally would, in which case it may indirectly help him bulk up more than he normally would.

[md-2000]

The placebo effect itself has limited utility. Sometimes the real medicine is actually necessary.

[beowulff]

I suspect that the vast majority of “supplements” that bodybuilders take only work due to the placebo effect. Steroids and HGH (and insulin) clearly work, but Creatine, Chromium Picolinate, and Guarana? Not so much, IMHO (I took Creatine for months, and didn’t see any difference).

[Riemann]

@dolphinboy

That’s magical thinking, unless he is subconsciously working out harder than he normally would…

But nobody is suggesting that there might be magic at work, any more than with any other instance of the placebo effect. If placebo drugs can improve medical outcomes, I see no reason in principle why a placebo effect could not operate here. It could be what you suggest (just working out harder), or it doesn’t seem too far fetched that psychological state could affect (say) endogenous testosterone levels.

[Moriarty]

@beowulff

but Creatine, Chromium Picolinate, and Guarana? Not so much, IMHO (I took Creatine for months, and didn’t see any difference).

Creatine has peer reviewed studies showing its efficacy.

Regardless of the form, supplementation with creatine has regularly shown to increase strength, fat free mass, and muscle morphology with concurrent heavy resistance training more than resistance training alone. Creatine may be of benefit in other modes of exercise such as high-intensity sprints or endurance training. However, it appears that the effects of creatine diminish as the length of time spent exercising increases. Even though not all individuals respond similarly to creatine supplementation, it is generally accepted that its supplementation increases creatine storage and promotes a faster regeneration of adenosine triphosphate between high intensity exercises. These improved outcomes will increase performance and promote greater training adaptations.

Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance:...