Effect of one‐week oral or inhaled salbutamol treatment with washout on repeated sprint performance in trained subjects

Background: Acute and chronic supratherapeutic treatment with the commonly used beta2-agonist salbutamol has the potential to enhance sprint performance and muscle strength. However, little is known about the performance effects of short-term daily permitted inhaled treatment vs oral prohibited treatment in accordance with the 2020 Prohibited List issued by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Methods: Herein, we investigated the effect of twice-daily treatment with 400 μg inhaled or 4 mg oral salbutamol for 1 week on repeated sprint performance in 19 healthy well-trained men and women utilizing a randomized open-label crossover design. Before and after each treatment period, and a 12-16 hours washout to avoid an acute effect of salbutamol, subjects performed a repeated sprint test (3 × 30-second Wingate).

Results: Neither oral nor inhaled salbutamol enhanced peak power (oral; 3.0 W; 95% CI −6.8 to 12.8 W; and inhaled; −3.8 W; 95% CI −14.3 to 6.8 W) or mean power (oral; −2.1 W; 95% CI −4.7 to 8.9 W and inhaled; −1.6 W; 95% CI −5.6 to 8.9 W) during the repeated sprint test irrespective of gender.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that 1 week is insufficient for salbutamol to induce any relevant effect on repeated sprint performance in trained individuals.