Could the smell of chocolate wafting through the gym make strength training easier, or at least more pleasant? A new Frontiers in Physiology study found that sniffing dark chocolate with a high cocoa content decreased feelings of hunger, desire and intention to eat, and left trainees feeling fuller.
"Exposing moderately trained men to chocolate odors right before and between sets of resistance exercise significantly increased their overall training volume without increasing their perceived exertion," said senior author Dr. Mohamed Nashrudin bin Naharudin, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Science at the University of Malaya.
"Seeing a substantial increase in repetitions without the athletes feeling like they were exerting themselves any harder is a fascinating psychobiological outcome."
The participant sample consisted of 23 healthy, moderately trained men in their early to mid-20s. Divided into three groups, they were provided one of three odor samples: liquefied dark chocolate containing 90% cocoa, liquefied milk chocolate containing 60% cocoa, or a water sample serving as a control.
"We know olfaction is powerfully wired into the brain's appetite and emotion networks, but surprisingly, no study has systematically looked at the three-way interaction between smell, appetite and actual resistance exercise capacity," said Naharudin.
