Athletes use smelling salts to trigger a rapid jolt of alertness and arousal right before a big play, lift, or shift. The sharp burst of ammonia gas irritates the nasal passages, which sets off a chain reaction in the nervous system that increases heart rate, breathing rate, and blood flow to the brain. It’s essentially a way to flip the body’s fight-or-flight switch on demand, and it’s become a common pre-performance ritual in football, powerlifting, hockey, and strongman competitions.
How Smelling Salts Work in the Body
The active ingredient is ammonium carbonate, typically at a concentration of about 15%. When the capsule is cracked or the container is opened, ammonium carbonate releases ammonia gas into the air. Ammonia is highly water-soluble, so the moment it contacts the moist lining of your nose, throat, and eyes, it reacts with that moisture to form ammonium hydroxide, a caustic chemical that immediately irritates the tissue.
That irritation activates the trigeminal nerve, one of the major nerves in the face responsible for detecting pain and chemical threats. The trigeminal nerve sends an alarm signal that triggers the sympathetic nervous system, your body’s built-in emergency response. The result is a rapid release of norepinephrine (the same stress hormone behind the fight-or-flight response), which causes several things to happen almost simultaneously: heart rate increases, breathing rate spikes, and blood flow velocity to the brain goes up. Some researchers believe this cascade may also increase blood supply to working muscles.
The whole experience takes just a second or two. Athletes describe it as an intense, eye-watering sting followed by a sudden feeling of being wide awake and locked in.
What Athletes Believe They Get From It
The appeal is straightforward. A powerlifter about to attempt a max deadlift wants every possible edge in focus and readiness. A football lineman coming back onto the field after sitting on the bench wants to feel switched on instantly. Hockey players use them between shifts to shake off fatigue and feel sharp again. The sympathetic nervous system activation is real and measurable: your heart genuinely beats faster, you breathe harder, and more blood reaches your brain.
There’s also a strong psychological component. The ritual of cracking a capsule before a big moment creates a mental anchor, a signal that it’s time to perform. The intense sensory shock forces the brain to snap to attention in a way that’s hard to replicate with deep breaths or self-talk alone. For many athletes, the confidence that comes from the ritual matters as much as the physiological effects.
Do They Actually Improve Performance?
This is where things get interesting, because the research doesn’t clearly support the performance claims. A study of 25 resistance-trained men tested whether smelling salts improved strength output at 85% of their one-rep max on the back squat and bench press. The athletes performed roughly the same number of reps whether they inhaled ammonia or a placebo (Vicks VapoRub, which mimics the sensation of inhaling something strong). The smelling salt group averaged 6.7 reps on the squat versus 6.4 for the placebo group, and 5.4 versus 5.2 on the bench press. Neither difference was statistically significant. Calculated one-rep max values were also unchanged across all conditions, including a baseline session with no inhalant at all.
So the measurable arousal, the faster heart rate and breathing, doesn’t appear to translate into more weight moved or more reps completed. That doesn’t mean athletes are imagining the effect entirely. The subjective feeling of alertness and readiness is genuine, and in sports where mental intensity and aggression matter (think a linebacker reading a play or a strongman psyching up for an atlas stone), that feeling of being “on” may have real practical value even without a measurable force increase.
How Athletes Use Them Safely
Smelling salts are meant to be held 4 to 6 inches from the nose, not pressed directly against the nostrils. The user breathes in slowly until they feel the desired alertness. Holding the capsule too close or inhaling too aggressively increases the risk of chemical irritation, since the ammonium hydroxide that forms on contact with moist tissue generates heat and can cause chemical burns to the eyes, nose, throat, and airways.
Most athletes use a single brief sniff. The capsules or bottles are designed for quick, controlled exposure, not prolonged inhalation. Some commercial products marketed to athletes come in small containers that can be re-sealed between uses, while traditional single-use capsules are crushed and discarded after one exposure.
Risks of Frequent or Improper Use
A single controlled sniff at the proper distance carries minimal risk for a healthy person. The immediate side effects are the intended ones: burning in the nose and throat, watery eyes, coughing, and a brief spike in heart rate. These resolve within seconds to minutes.
The dangers come from misuse. Prolonged inhalation can cause permanent lung damage. Ammonia is a known toxin, and concentrated or extended exposure can cause chemical burns to the airways. In an extreme case from 2006, a 14-year-old boy at a Florida juvenile detention camp died after forced inhalation of smelling salts triggered a vocal cord spasm that blocked his airway. That case involved abuse and forced exposure, not voluntary athletic use, but it illustrates that ammonia gas is not a harmless substance.
Repeated daily use also raises concerns about cumulative irritation to the nasal passages and respiratory tract, though long-term studies on athletes who use them regularly are limited. The more concentrated “nose tork” style products popular in powerlifting communities deliver a stronger dose of ammonia than standard medical-grade capsules, which increases the irritation risk.
The Concussion Concern
In contact sports like football and hockey, there’s a specific worry that smelling salts can mask the signs of a concussion. If a player takes a hard hit and feels dazed, a sniff of ammonia will make them feel alert and ready to return to play, even if their brain has just sustained a traumatic injury. The sympathetic nervous system jolt temporarily overrides the grogginess and confusion that would otherwise signal a problem. This is one reason medical professionals have pushed back against their sideline use. Feeling awake is not the same as being neurologically safe.
Legal and League Status
Smelling salts are not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency or by any major professional sports league. They’re classified as an over-the-counter inhalant, not a performance-enhancing drug. The NFL, NHL, and international powerlifting federations all permit their use, which is a big part of why they’ve become so visible in those sports. You can buy them at most pharmacies or online without a prescription.
Their widespread acceptance, combined with the dramatic on-camera reactions they produce, has made smelling salts one of those sports rituals that looks more extreme than it technically is. The physiological response is real but brief, the performance boost is debatable, and for most athletes, the biggest benefit is probably the psychological certainty that they’re ready to go.