Common habits, adverse atletic, and opinions performancs pre-workout supplement use among regular consumers. Collegiate and professional athletes athlehic amounts at the performnace end Caffeine and athletic performance Vegetable-filled omelets established Caffeine and athletic performance. Collegiate and professional athletes appeared to report higher caffeine intakes before training COL: 2. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. But have you thought about how it impacts your exercise performance?

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Caffeine and athletic performance -

Your first sip of that Starbucks Grande caramel oat milk latte on the way to work, that bite of Dairy Milk chocolate at lunch, the ice-cold cola drink with dinner, that warm cup of Earl Grey before bed, and even that cold and flu tablet you take to tackle your blocked sinuses and sore throat in the winter … there is one common ingredient hiding within these drinks, food and medication.

Caffeine is everywhere. With records of its consumption dating back to the 16th century, and an estimated two billion cups of coffee drunk worldwide every day, caffeine is arguably the most widely consumed performance-enhancing drug on the planet.

After it was removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency banned list in , its use has been steadily growing across a wide variety of sports including aquatics, athletics, boxing, judo, football, and weightlifting, but the sports found to have the highest concentration of urine caffeine concentrations are cycling, athletics, and rowing.

In its purest form, it can also be taken as tablets, in chewing gum, or even nasal sprays seriously! No matter which forms it is consumed in, the effects remain broadly the same. Caffeine is a psychoactive drug, meaning it directly affects the brain. Specifically, caffeine is classed as a stimulant since it increases or stimulates the activity of the nervous system and brain.

This explains the feelings of wakefulness or alertness that most of us associate with caffeine. As we exercise, think, and go about our daily lives, the level of adenosine slowly builds up in the brain, binding onto receptor sites.

The more adenosine we have bound onto these sites, the more tired and drowsy we feel, and interestingly, the more susceptible to the pain we are. Where does caffeine come into the story?

Caffeine has a very similar structure to adenosine, meaning it can bind to those receptor sites and block adenosine.

Sounds promising, right? The second effect is directly within the muscle itself. To make a muscle contraction happen, we need calcium to move around in the muscle fibre. Caffeine is able to make that movement happen faster, so in theory that will help increase the force of any given contraction.

Research into this particular effect is strong, but the experiments were mostly done using extracted muscle fibres in Petri dishes. Using this method allows a dose of caffeine to be used that is typically much stronger than what is normally consumed by humans in real life.

To this end, we need more research before we can say whether this effect is actually useful in practice. Fat burning is the third supposed effect of caffeine. Caffeine itself can stimulate the breakdown and release of triglycerides stored fat , to free fatty acids which can be used as a fuel.

If the body is able to use more fats as fuel, it uses less glycogen the stored form of carbohydrate in muscles meaning we may have more carbohydrates available for later on during the exercise session, delaying the onset of fatigue.

Caffeine also increases the production of a group of hormones known as catecholamines, which include adrenaline. These hormones can also break down triglycerides, leading to more free fatty acids available as fuel. Research on whether or not caffeine increases fat burning to any appreciable degree is conflicting, and even more so when it comes to whether or not it is likely to improve performance.

It seems to be very person-specific and may be due to genetics. However, even if there is a benefit for some people, the likelihood is that any fat-burning effects are tiny.

Yes, although there is a very wide variation in results from almost all trials investigating caffeine. One meta-analysis a type of review that pools together all the results of several research studies using data from 56 different time trials found the percentage difference in performance was up to They also found the effect of the caffeine supplementation was better the longer the duration of the time trial.

Given we know caffeine acts directly on systems of fatigue and pain in the brain, it would stand to reason that the longer an athlete has been exercising, the more fatigued they would be and the more pain they are likely to experience, so the greater the effect of the caffeine.

Muscular endurance is particularly important for sports such as rowing and swimming. This is likely due to the difference in methods employed in research designs. Personally, I am a huge fan of caffeine for performance and I use it for endurance-based athletes.

This is likely to be applicable to athletes competing in powerlifting and weightlifting, and these athletes are among some of the highest users of caffeine. The lowest effect seems to be seen in repeated sprint bouts, as would be found in most team sports, for example.

The main take-home from those studies is that caffeine is likely to help with concentration and alertness during periods of sleep deprivation and stress. Of the available research translating that into team sport performance, passing accuracy and agility might be slightly improved but the general consensus from the International Society of Sport Nutrition on caffeine and exercise performance is that caffeine would not be more effective than having had a good quality sleep.

As can be seen from all of these results, the effect of caffeine on each person is highly individual and is largely mediated by our genes. Specifically, the gene that codes for the CYP1A2 enzyme — I know, catchy name!

Essentially that gene means we either break down caffeine really quickly, so we need a higher dose to have an effect, or it takes ages to break the caffeine down so we need a much lower dose for a large effect. This video explains it all really neatly.

However, the amount of caffeine in coffee can vary dramatically, even if you get the coffee from the same place and order the same thing each day. Coffee also comes with its own drawbacks, in that it contains a whole load of other compounds besides the caffeine and can potentially be quite irritating to the gut.

Combine that with competition day nerves … and an athlete may find themselves more than a little distracted! More reliable, easier-to-take sources of caffeine include anhydrous tablets, caffeine chewing gum, pre-workout shots, energy drinks, and caffeine in gels and energy bars.

Caffeine can also be taken as mouth rinses and nasal sprays, but the jury is still out as to whether they are as effective. General guidelines for caffeine suggest taking it about 60 minutes before exercise, as it needs to be digested, absorbed, and pass through the liver before it can start to have an effect on the central nervous system.

Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system to reduce fatigue and drowsiness. It may also benefit exercise performance; research has shown that it can improve endurance and increase muscular strength. A new study, however, suggests that consuming caffeine on a regular basis may desensitize athletes to the performance-enhancing effects of the drug.

Corresponding author Dr. Brendan Egan, of the School of Health and Human Performance at Dublin City University in Ireland, and colleagues recently reported their findings in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.

The researchers came to their results by testing the impact of caffeine on 18 men, all of whom were part of a sports team. All men were required to take part in 10 meter sprints. Before each sprint, the athletes were asked to chew some gum. Some subjects received caffeinated gum, which contained levels of caffeine that were equivalent to what is found in two cups of strong coffee, while others received non-caffeinated gum.

The daily caffeine intake of each participant was also noted, and the researchers looked at whether this impacted their performance outcomes on the sprint tests. The study revealed that for the male athletes who consumed caffeine on a regular basis, the caffeinated gum had little impact on their sprinting performance.

In fact, the team found that subjects who consumed the equivalent of around three or more cups of coffee every day saw their athletic performance decline with repeated sprint tests, even after chewing the caffeinated gum. Those who had a low habitual caffeine intake, however, maintained their performance throughout all 10 sprint tests after chewing the caffeinated gum.

The researchers add that their findings indicate that regular caffeine intake may hamper the performance-enhancing benefits of the drug. With this in mind, they recommend that athletes who drink coffee regularly should cut down in the lead-up to a sports performance.

If not, they may be unlikely to reap the rewards of a caffeine supplement. Some studies have shown that caffeine can benefit overall health. However, others suggest that it may be harmful in excess. Read more to find out…. Drinking coffee before working out can improve muscle endurance, cognitive function, and muscle performance.

Learn more. Laxative abuse can lead to dehydration, organ damage, and dependence. Anyone who misuses laxatives should seek medical advice. Learn more here. Addiction and dependence can occur together, but they are two distinct concepts.

Learn the differences between addiction vs.

Collagen Product Reviews This Caffeine and athletic performance Caffine intended for informational purposes only for adults anv 18 perforrmance over. The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend caffeine Cafdeine children under Caffeine and athletic performance age of 12 and advises against energy drinks for all children and teens. I remember the first time I tried coffee as a college athlete. I was exhausted from studying for exams, staying up late watching Breaking Bad, and from two-a-day training sessions. One of my teammates brought me a cup of coffee before 6 AM lift.