Study Finds Smelling Dark Chocolate Before Exercise May Boost Workout Performance

Can simply smelling chocolate help you perform better in the gym? A new study suggests it might-especially if you're exercising on an empty stomach.

Researchers reporting in Frontiers in Physiology found that the aroma of dark chocolate reduced hunger and improved resistance exercise performance in healthy young men, even though they consumed no food.

The randomized, double-blind crossover study involved 23 resistance-trained men who completed exercise sessions after smelling one of three odors: 90% dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or an odorless control. Participants remained fasted throughout the experiments.

Before exercising, those exposed to the dark chocolate scent reported feeling less hungry, more full, and having a lower desire to eat than those exposed to milk chocolate or the control. Interestingly, participants rated the milk chocolate aroma as the most pleasant, suggesting that the appetite-suppressing effects of dark chocolate were not solely due to the aroma.

The performance results were also notable. After smelling dark chocolate, participants completed an average of 18 more leg-extension repetitions than during the control session and nine more repetitions than after smelling milk chocolate. They also completed more exercise sets overall. Milk chocolate odor also improved performance compared with the control, but to a lesser extent.

Researchers found that participants who felt less hungry before exercising generally performed better. However, additional analyses could not confirm that reduced hunger directly caused the performance improvements, meaning other brain or sensory mechanisms may also be involved.

The researchers caution that the findings apply only to young, resistance-trained men performing a single lower-body exercise while fasting. Larger studies involving women, older adults, and different types of exercise are needed.

Although smelling chocolate is not a substitute for proper nutrition, the study suggests that simple food-related scents—particularly dark chocolate—may one day become a useful, non-caloric strategy to support exercise performance during fasting or calorie restriction.

REFERENCE: Fan, X. et al. (2026). Chocolate odor enhances resistance exercise performance through appetite suppression in the fasted state: An exploratory study. Frontiers in Physiology. 17, 1834757. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2026.1834757.