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Lead Stories: Friday, July 18, 2008

Q&A: Does caffeine really improve athletic performance, or do you just feel more alert?

Posted January 24th, 2008 at 10:15 AM by Jeremy Sussman

Section: Nutrition, Supplements, Health & Fitness, Exercise

In endurance events, the first cause of fatigue is loss of muscle sugar, so athletes do whatever they can to preserve sugar levels. Caffeine causes the body to produce large amounts of adrenalin, which causes fat to be released from fat cells and float in the bloodstream.

This extra fat is taken up by the muscles and used for energy, thus preserving the body’s limited stored supply of muscle sugar. When muscles run our of sugar, the athlete requires more oxygen to do the same job, slows down, fatigues earlier, and has difficulty maintaining his performance.
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Studies: Caffeine can help athletes in both endurance and sprinting events

Posted March 29th, 2007 at 4:00 PM by Martha Jones

Section: Nutrition, Supplements

It has been established for more than 50 years that caffeine helps you exercise longer in events that require endurance.

Recently researchers at Christ Church University in Canterbury, UK, showed that caffeine also helps you in much shorter events. Trained cyclists raced one kilometer (0.6 mile) on three times, in random order, after taking 5 mg of caffeine, taking a placebo, or taking nothing.

Their speed, mean power and peak power were more than three percent higher after taking caffeine (Journal of Sports Sciences, November 2006).
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