A study published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine (1992;13(6):486–491) examined whether acupuncture could influence athletic performance. The study included 36 male participants who were randomly assigned to one of three groups.
One group served as a control and received no treatment. A second group received one acupuncture treatment per week for five weeks. A third group received sham acupuncture, which served as a placebo intervention. Athletic performance was measured using a spiroergometer, a device that assesses physical performance and cardiorespiratory capacity during exercise.
Participants who received acupuncture showed a statistically significant improvement in performance compared with both the control group and the sham-acupuncture group. No significant improvement was observed in the placebo group.
While the study was relatively small, the findings suggest that acupuncture may influence physiological factors related to exercise performance. As with other intervention studies, further research with larger sample sizes is needed to clarify mechanisms and determine how broadly these results apply.
