How Caffeine Can Put a Buzz in Your WorkoutBy Vanessa Agosta [Fitness]
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Can a cup of coffee help you have a better workout? Vanessa Agosta uncovers the stimulating research.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were something you could take to make you feel energized during your workouts, allowing you to get the most bang for your buck in that single exercise session? You could lift heavier weights for a longer period of time or go an extra mile on the treadmill and still feel like you had enough energy to do more. My philosophy is, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. However, new research has brought to light the benefits of taking caffeine to improve sports and exercise performance in elite athletes.The issue of caffeine and its effect on exercise performance has long been an issue of debate. Decades of studies have brought us full circle, from the belief that caffeine is helpful to the belief that the risks of its use outweigh the benefits and then back again. Athletic Performance and Caffeine Caffeine has been long thought of as a performance-enhancing drug. In fact, it was a banned substance for professional athletes until 2004. Competitors could test positive for caffeine use if they drank as few as three cups of strong coffee. Because caffeine was so common in most athletes’ diets, the World Anti-Doping Agency decided to remove it from its restricted list. The funny thing was, as soon as it was allowed, caffeine levels dropped in urine tests for most sports. The prevailing wisdom in the elite athlete world was that if it wasn’t banned, then it must not enhance sports performance. Today, there is no doubt that caffeine is a powerful performance enhancer. Decades of studies have established that caffeine helps with aerobic sports, such as sprinting, and other endurance activities for up to two hours. A growing body of research now also suggest that it helps resistance exercise such as weightlifting. Caffeine, however, is a diuretic and will make you lose water. It is therefore commonly believed that caffeine use can leave you dehydrated, which is not what you want while you’re exercising. How Does Caffeine Improve Performance? How caffeine works is still a matter of some debate. Some weight loss drug manufacturers would have you believe that caffeine increases your metabolic rate and helps you burn more body fat. However, research has dispelled this notion. The current theory on caffeine’s effect on exercise performance is that it directly affects how muscle fibres contract. Caffeine may actually cause each muscle fibre to contract more strongly when it receives a signal from the nervous system. |
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