Can someone please explain why albuterol doesn't enhance performance?

My understanding is albuterol is a beta-2 agonist.

The summary is you need to have the muscles that tighten during an asthma attack for it to do anything. Albuterol "tells" the muscles to relax. No asthma-related tightening, no direct benefit.

There is an indirect benefit to many beta agonists, weight loss. It's a very popular prescription/TUE in endurance sports for this reason.

asthma or even exercise induced brochospasm (IEB) means your lung airways are tightening secondary to a stimulus- for asthmatics one of the stimuli is excercise, but can also be other things such as allergens- also asthmatics have smaller than nornal airways all the time due to chronic inflammation. Those with excercise induced brochospasm have normal airways at baseline, but they over constrict with exercise. If someone does not have IEB or asthma then there airways are not overconstricting with excercise and the albuterol has nothing to relax. I have sent many patients for excercise lung function tests ( the only way to truly diagnose IEB- a history of trouble breathing with exercise is no better than a coin flip at predicting IEB) and almost none have ever met criteria for IEB. Albuterol makes your heart beat rapidly, so I imagine it might be a detriment to those without asthma or IEB.

Yes. I'm just echoing others, but Asthma is bronchoconstriction - your passageways in your lungs narrow (you also get some inflammation as a result). Albuterol opens those passageways back up. If you don't have asthma, then your passageways aren't constricted, and so there's nothing to open up.

Incidentally, that's how they test you for asthma. It's called a bronchodilator challenge. You take a breathing test (a PFT), then puff on albuterol through a nebulizer for about 10 minutes. Then redo the PFT. If the albuterol had a noticeable effect, then the test supports a diagnosis of asthma.

That's probably why they no longer require a TUE for albuterol. The TUE was based on the results of a bronchodilator challenge. But if your test didn't support your claim of asthma, then the albuterol wasn't helping you, so not really a PED.

Big Meech wrote:

A friend and I used his son's albuterol inhaler during an interval work out, but neither one of us noticed any benefit. After researching online, it looks like a number of studies have come to the same conclusion. Is there a reason albuterol's bronchi-dilating effect doesn't help non-ashmatics?

Did you leave enough puffs for the kid??

Seriously, though, non-athsmatics' bronchia don't experience the constriction/reaction response of the typical EIA (exercise induced asthma) episode, therefore they don't benefit from the drug.

For those with some reading endurance/interest in fine print, see below. Older study but still intriguing (note highlight)

A much more adult way to go about this would have been to do the online researching first and then not use your friends sons inhaler before your workout.

what can brown do for you wrote:

A much more adult way to go about this would have been to do the online researching first and then not use your friends sons inhaler before your workout.

He's a natural scientist, but not a researcher.

You sound like an adventurous soul. I bet you're super fun at parties.

Also thank you to everyone else for the serious replies. Very informative and a lot easier to understand than journal articles!

flame-retard-ant wrote:

Big Meech wrote:

A friend and I used his son's albuterol inhaler during an interval work out, but neither one of us noticed any benefit. After researching online, it looks like a number of studies have come to the same conclusion. Is there a reason albuterol's bronchi-dilating effect doesn't help non-ashmatics?

Did you leave enough puffs for the kid??

Lol, kid probably gonna be dying from an attack later only to find his puffer is empty af.

If you take it in a pill form it is a stimulant.

It acts locally when inhaled. Your friend's kid probably saves it up an takes it orally to get the anabolic effects.