Topical carnosine gel improves intermittent high-intensity exercise performance in world-class rugby sevens players

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Carnosine in this randomized controlled trial publication.

This study investigated the effect of a topical carnosine gel on intermittent high-intensity exercise performance in rugby sevens players.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are young adults and adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Carnosine group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Carnosine, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Carnosine, giving a reference point.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Carnosine and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Seven world-class rugby sevens players (body mass: 97.5 ± 4.1 kg; 1,452 International caps) completed two performance tests in a counterbalanced, crossover, triple-blind design.

Average power, peak power, and HR were recorded for every 6 s sprint.

RPE was recorded at the end of Sprint 6 and Sprint 12.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Administration, Topical, Athletic Performance, Carnosine, Exercise Test, Gels and Rugby.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Transdermal, buffering and peak power.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Carnosine.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2025 (Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Carnosine compound page, all human trials.