Effects of Dark Chocolate on Physiological and Anaerobic Performance
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Participants completed two trials: one after consuming Dark chocolate (DC) milk and another after consuming an iso-caloric white chocolate (WC) milk, which served as a flavonoid-free control. In each trial, they performed a Running Anaerobic Sprint Test (RAST), which consisted of two sets of six 35-meter sprints.
The results showed that DC supplementation significantly improved performance in the second set of sprints:
⢠Faster Average Sprint Time: 6.43 s (DC) vs. 6.62 s (WC) (p=0.012).
⢠Faster Total Effort Time: 38.58 s (DC) vs. 39.72 s (WC) (p=0.012).
⢠Higher Mean Power: 354.09 W (DC) vs. 323.81 W (WC) (p=0.009).
Additionally, during the first set of sprints, participants had a significantly lower (better) fatigue index after consuming DC (30.71%) compared to WC (38.67%) (p=0.006).
