Aragon wrote:
While at this moment I don't have access to the paper, I am still quite sure I haven't done so, because I am pretty sure I doublechecked the data, and the authors of the paper write in relation to the 135+235ml tests that "changes in time trial mean power and time to completion following the combined transfusions were not different from those obtained following the low-volume transfusion" indicating it was the same type of test. Clearly there was in addition the 4x30 test.
One possible criticism could be that those are absolute increases and not increases vs. placebo, but I think the placebo watts and times were pretty same (on average) throughout the study, so there should be no significant difference.
Ok, let's clarify a few things.
One, you are right about the 2nd time trial. Specifically, the authors wrote:
1st transfusion:
"The post hoc analysis revealed that following a low-volume transfusion, time trial mean power increased (P < 0.05) by 4.7 ± 1.6 %, while the mean power in the PLA trial was unaffected (0.3 ± 4.5 %). Time to completion became 4.4 ± 1.5 % faster after transfusion (P < 0.05) but was constant (-0.3 ± 4.5 %) in PLA."
2nd transfusion:
"Post hoc analysis demonstrated that, following the combined high-volume transfusion, the time trial mean power increased (P < 0.01) by 5.6 ± 2.7 % but remained similar in PLA (0.0 ± 7.0 %). Time to completion became 5.1 ± 2.6 % faster (P < 0.05) in the BT group but remained similar in PLA (0.4 ± 7.5 %)."
Two, yes there is a story with the SDs, as you can see in the quote above: the SD is higher (compare the high volume power increase of 5.6 ± 2.7 % with the low volume power increase of 4.7 ± 1.6 %). This is to a large part caused by the two people who actually got worse after the second transfusion (but still better than before the first transfusion), if I understand Figure 2 correctly (which has neither a very detailed caption nor detailed description in the main text).
Three, yes, as stated a few pages back, the placebo group did not increase significantly in performance (also quoted above in this post).
Four, if one were to plot that graph you linked to with the SDs, especially when also adding to roughly ± 0.8 g/dl in [Hb], one could easily put in a linear curve. Alternatively, one could say that the performance did not increase between the two transfusions (while the first increase is significant).
btw, if that's your graph, Aragon: the plot shows relative mean power in %. The actual mean power values range from 150 W to 310 W, depending on the person and trial.