Does Caffeine Actually Improve Exercise Performance?

I’m pretty sure that most of us either use caffeine ourselves, or know someone who uses caffeine, either deliberately or by chance, to improve daily performance. However, is it actually of benefit to us, or is it just a habit that we stick by?

Photo by Doğukan Şahin on Unsplash

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Housekeeping

Here are a few quick reminders before we begin:

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Mechanism of action

Caffeine is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. Whether we consider it to be ‘drug use’ whilst we sit and enjoy our morning coffee is another matter, but the fact remains that caffeine alters our physiology is a strong and undeniable way. Have you actually wondered what is happening inside the body when that first sip hits our lips? Let’s take a look.

I’ve previously written about the modification of caffeine intake to aid with sleep, and will be paraphrasing from that newsletter here. If you’d like to read more, then hit the embedded link below.

Sleep - Part 2: Three things…

To understand how caffeine works, we first need to understand that it is very similar in structure to adenosine. On a normal day, we wake up and very few of these adenosine receptors are in use. As time progresses, adenosine binds to adenosine receptors, telling the brain that we are getting more tired and need to take things slowly to recharge. This is a perfectly normal process and it is a vital part of our circadian rhythm and sleep-wake cycle.

Now let’s imagine we have just enjoyed our morning coffee. The caffeine rushes into our system, and, because it looks like adenosine, it binds to and blocks the adenosine receptors. If the adenosine cannot bind to receptors because the caffeine is blocking it, the signal to tell our brain that we are tired becomes delayed. This signal has to wait until caffeine departs and some receptors become free again. This can be a problem when we consider that the half life of caffeine is, on average, 5-6 hours. This means that even 5 hours after a coffee, half of the caffeine is still circulating and able to block the adenosine receptors.

Therefore, caffeine is great at tricking the brain into not feeling tired, but this usually comes back to bite us down the line, in the form of an afternoon slump or crash.

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Caffeine use in the exercise realm

Whilst coffee ingestion is still common before an exercise bout, other modes of ingestion are also available, including:

• Capsules and tablets

• ‘Pre-workout’ shakes and powders

• Energy drinks (the ‘white monster’ crowd)

• Gels

• Chewing gum

The real question is: Is it worth ingesting caffeine before exercise? Does it improve performance?

The answer is, as always, it depends…