Effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Endurance Performance in Elite Female Rowers: A Pilot, Single-Blinded Study

Abstract

Endurance, which is dependent at least partly upon the activation of the brain cortex, is important for performance in rowing. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has shown benefits for endurance, but its effects on the endurance performance of elite rowing athletes are unknown, and are examined in this study. Eight elite female rowers completed 5 km of rowing on an ergometer following stimulation of the tDCS and sham over motor cortices. Each session lasted 20 min and the current was set at 2.2 mA. Time, 500 m/split, power, time corresponding to 500 m (TC500) and power corresponding to 500 m (PC500) were recorded continuously throughout the tests. No significant differences in time, 500 m/split and power were observed between baseline, tDCS and sham. Compared to the sham, tDCS induced a percentage reduction in TC500 from baseline to 2500 m and 4000 m, and a percentage increase in PC500 from baseline to 500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m, 2000 m, 2500 m, 4000 m, 4500 m and 5000 m. One-session tDCS did not have significant benefits for rowing endurance performance in elite professional rowers, and had only marginally greater efficacy compared to sham. These findings offer knowledge helpful to the design of future studies exploring the effects of tDCS on the endurance performance of elite rowers.

A Single Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Session to Enhance Sport-Specific Performance in Trained Individuals? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Athletes were experienced in various sports disciplines: cycling [16, 29, 35, 36, 41], swimming [37, 39, 43], triathlon [30], rowing [41, 42], bodybuilding [31], resistance training [38], basketball [40], parkour [3], taekwondo [17, 32] and pistol-shooting [33]. Additionally, some studies reported that athletes competed at the regional [39], national [17, 32, 37, 42, 43] and/or international level [17, 30, 32, 37]. For an overview of investigated sport-specific motor performances in each study, please see Table 1.…”

“…For an overview of investigated sport-specific motor performances in each study, please see Table 1. Sport disciplines were categorized in the following performance domains: endurance (cycling [16, 29, 35, 36, 41], swimming [37, 39, 43], triathlon [30], rowing [41, 42]), strength (bodybuilding [31], resistance training [38]) & visuomotor skill (basketball [40], parkour [3], taekwondo [17, 32], pistol-shooting [33]).…”

“…All studies applied tDCS prior to sport-specific performance. Cortical target areas of tDCS were clustered in 4 groups: M1 [3, 17, 30-32, 34, 38, 40-42], TC [29, 31, 43], PFC [3, 16, 35-37, 39] and CB [33]. Current intensity was set at 2 - 2.2 mA in most studies (78 %) or 1.5 mA (22%).…”

“…Our results corroborate this heterogeneity for sport-specific performance in athletes. Among the ten included studies that stimulated M1, five showed performance-enhancing effects [3, 31, 38, 40], whereas the remaining five studies failed to demonstrate any behavioral effects [17, 30, 32, 41, 42]. On a functional level, anodal tDCS over M1 has been shown to increase the excitability of M1 [4], which improves the neural drive to the working muscles [51].…”

“…In addition, a Google Scholar search identified one study that was not indexed in the searched databases because of its recent publication date. Finally, a total of 18 studies were deemed eligible for inclusion in the qualitative synthesis [3,16,17,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. An overview of the study selection process is depicted in the PRISMA flow diagram (Figure 1).…”