Effect of nicotine and muscle performance using a Wingate Anaerobic Test on collegiate football players

Abstract

Nicotine is a naturally occurring addictive alkaloid and in some cases, a lethal drug. The long-term harmful effects of nicotine have been widely documented through means of publications, commercials and even billboards to stop the use of nicotine in the form of tobacco. Even with the knowledge of these harmful side effects, thousands of athletes still use tobacco. In this study the use of nicotinic substances was tested during Wingate Anaerobic Tests (WAnT) on collegiate football athletes. These tests had three possible outcomes: ergogenic, ergolytic or no effect. The subjects were 12 University of Wisconsin – Whitewater football players between the ages of 19 - 23. They performed a series of two tests on a Monarch cycle ergometer for 30 seconds at a time on two separate days. One day post-nicotine gum administration; the other day post-placebo gum administration. The data received was considered significant with a p-value < .05. This experiment showed nicotine’s effect on: peak anaerobic power (P = .34), anaerobic capacity (P = .92), and anaerobic fatigue percentage (P = .33) in the human body during a WAnT. Therefore, the data received from this experiment were concluded not to be statistically significant.