Coffee and Fitness

Coffee and Fitness

 Can coffee improve our fitness? It does seem that the ingestion of caffeine can enhance exercise and sports performance. In fact, caffeine's efficacy as a performance-enhancing drug has led the International Olympic Committee to consider urinary levels of caffeine exceeding 12 micrograms/ml as worthy of a ban. You'd have to knock back eight cups of coffee to achieve such a target, however. Assuming you're not competing at the top level, a strong cup of coffee an hour before that fun run or charity bike ride might just help you through. Even if it isn't physiologically easier, studies have shown that people perceive their effort to be less intense after caffeine ingestion. In other words, you're trying as hard but you don't feel as if you are. However, caffeine can also dehydrate you, so don't overdo it and be sure to drink water regularly during your workouts.

So, these previous studies show that caffeine can boost your endurance, particularly during exercise lasting between thirty minutes and two hours. Because of its high caffeine content, many people drink coffee in the belief that it has the same effect. Unfortunately, it doesn't according to a recent study.A Canadian research team compared the effects of coffee and caffeine on run time to exhaustion. A group of nine men took part in five trials. Sixty minutes before each run, the men took one of the following.                     

• Placebo (a "dummy" supplement).
• Caffeine capsules.
• De-caffeinated coffee.
• De-caffeinated coffee with caffeine added.
• Regular coffee.

Performance times were up to 10 minutes longer in subjects using the caffeine capsules. There were no differences in run times among the other trials. These results are somewhat surprising, especially when you consider that caffeine absorption was similar during all three caffeine trials. The only explanation is that something in the coffee interferes with the effects of caffeine. This isn't surprising, especially when you consider there are hundreds of compounds dissolved when coffee beans are roasted, ground and extracted in hot water. In fact, when one of these compounds was injected into rats, it actually slowed heart rate and lowered blood pressure.

The bottom line, then, is that if you plan to use caffeine to boost your exercise routines (particularly your endurance times), pure caffeine (such as in the form of capsules) might prove to be more beneficial than coffee.

Clearly, coffee has some health benefits, but also has very real risks and it's role in the improvement of fitness levels is questionable. So, in light of these facts, I highly recommend being balanced to your approach to coffee ingestion as it relates to your health and fitness.