A lot of use love coffee and we must have in the morning. But did
you know that the caffeine in coffee could give you a performance boost. At the
right levels, caffeine can improve your training and races. There are three
proven advantages that caffeine has:
-Improving focus & mental performance
-Increasing physical endurance
-Reducing rate of perceived exertion
But there has also been studies done that
show caffeine can help you recover. I will get into that later on.
To have these effects on your body the
caffeine levels must be correct and taken at the right time. The right amount
of caffeine is different for every person. But studies have shown that 2-3mg per kilogram of body weight is optimal for sports
performance. Having too little caffeine won’t impact your training at all, but
most of us are familiar with the side effects of having too much. For this
reason it is important to track the amount of caffeine you are taking in.
I personally like to use caffeine pills before a race because I
know the exact level. I will be trying a new kind of coffee called TrueStart coffee that gives
you the caffeine levels in your coffee. Since it is very hard to know how much Caffeine
you are getting in a cup of coffee there are just so many variables like the
type of bean, the roast, altitude, the weather, and more. It gets even more
complicated when it comes to roast and ground coffee.
Caffeine takes about 45 minutes to fully be absorbed and has a half-life
of 5.7 hours. I personally like to take my caffeine about 1 hour before I
workout or race to make sure it has settled in.
There are two tips of Caffeine.
Type 1 – Synthetic Caffeine
-Found in traditional energy drinks, gels and
pills
-The great thing about synthetic caffeine is
it is regulated, so you know how much you are taking in
-Synthetic caffeine is it gets absorbed
through the digestive system much faster than naturally occurring plant
caffeine .
-Synethic caffeine options also tend to come
hand-in-hand with extra sugar
(TrueStart, 2016)
Type 2 – Natural Caffeine
-Caffeine is naturally found in coffee, tea,
cocoa and approximately 60 other plant species
-The great thing about natural caffeine is it
gets slowly released into the bloodstream, providing more sustained energy
-Natural caffeine is it is unregulated, so
you don’t know how much you’re getting. A single cup of coffee can vary
from less than 20mg to over 300mg caffeine.
(TrueStart, 2016)
Caffeine has also been shown to help with recovery. The study was
conducted on seven high-level endurance cyclists who partook in four sessions.
‘Glycogen, the muscle’s primary fuel source during exercise, is
replenished more rapidly when athletes ingest both carbohydrate and caffeine
following exhaustive exercise, new research from the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology shows. Athletes who
ingested caffeine with carbohydrate had 66% more glycogen in their muscles four
hours after finishing intense, glycogen-depleting exercise, compared to when
they consumed carbohydrate alone, according to the study, published by The American Physiological Society.’
(Hawley, 2008)
The study used very high levels of caffeine to get these effects, 8
mg per kilogram of body weight. That is about 5-6 cups of strong coffee.
Further research is needed to see if lower levels of caffeine have similar effects.
But any reason to have another cup of coffee right.
Sources:
Hawley, John
A. (2008). The American Physiological Society. http://www.the-aps.org/mm/hp/audiences/public-press/archive/08/24.html
(2016). TureStart. http://www.truestartcoffee.com/learn/train-harder-for-longer
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