How Good Is It To Use Caffeine As Pre-Workout Booster?

September 17, 2021

How Good Is It To Use Caffeine As Pre-Workout Booster?

Pre Workout Caffeine | Caffeine and Sport

This post may interest you if you are looking for any of those:
Pre workout caffeine, pre workout without caffeine, pre workout no caffeine, non caffeine pre workout, low caffeine pre workout, coffee before gym, coffee pre workout, black coffee before workout, black coffee pre workout, fit coffee, fitness coffee, caffeine for sport performance, caffeine and sport performance, caffeine bodybuilding, caffeine endurance, coffee and bodybuilding or coffee bodybuilding.

You get the picture now let start!

Pre Workout Without Caffeine or With, You will need to understand those two words:

Isokinetic: “Weightlifting for example. Relating to a type of limb movement in which the muscle contracts and shortens at a constant”

(“Collins dictionary, 2019. Definition of Isokinetic. Available at: Isokinetic definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary)

Ergogenic: “is anything that gives you a mental or physical edge while exercising or competing.”

(“Performance Enhancers: The Safe and the Deadly. Safe supplements, Harmful or illegal aids, Takeaway. Available at: Performance Enhancers: The Safe and the Deadly)

SEE THROUGH THOSE NEXT 4 POINTS IF YOU HAVE AN ANSWER

1) CAFFEINE PERFORMANCE FOR SPORT PERFORMANCE:

Pickering, Craig; Kiely, John, Jan 2018. Are the Current Guidelines on Caffeine Use in Sport Optimal for Everyone? Inter-individual Variation in Caffeine Erogenicity, and a Move Towards Personalized Sports Nutrition. Sports Medicine. Auckland Vol. 48, N° 1, 7-16. DOI:10.1007/s40279-017-0776-1 (ProQuest)

Performance enhancing
Positive effects on muscular endurance
Stimulates adrenaline secretion
Increases cellular ion releases
Decreases pain perception.

2) BLACK COFFEE PRE WORKOUT COFFEE BODYBUILDING: SOME NUMBERS!

Coffee before gym needs to be measured in order to reach your goals and it is suggested to have it one hour before exercise because the peak is reach 60mn after its ingestion. Research have validated that fact when giving us the timing of coffee effects in the human body saying that “Elevated caffeine concentrations appear in the bloodstream as quickly as 15 min post-ingestion, peaking after about 60 min, with a 3- to 4-h half-life.” (“Graham TE. Caffeine and exercise: metabolism, endurance and performance. Sports Med. 2001;31(11):785-807.”)

Approximately 200mg is the concentration of caffeine of a normal coffee cup at you preferred barista place as 20g of coffee is used for one cup. As it is suggested to have 3mg/kg to 9mg/kg, 60mn before your exercise session.

Fit Coffee Calculation Example:

You weight is 65kg

Lower end: 3mg x 65 = 195mg of caffeine which is one cup of coffee.

Higher end: 9mg x 65 = 585mg of caffeine which is almost 3 cups of coffee.

Therefore, between one to 3 cups of coffee before workout but it is not that easy because they are several factors to consider. Those factors can affect the quality of the desired effect.

3) BLACK COFFEE BEFORE WORKOUT FACTORS TO CONSIDER:

The research has shown that it can vary a lot depending on the people (genetics) and that also for some cases having several coffee shots under 3mg/kg and this during the exercise can be more ergogenic (enhancing performances). It is a very complicated subject because the environment will have also effects on how caffeine has effects on you. Examples to consider other than the genetic factors are:

Smoking

(“Parsons WD, Neims AH. Effect of smoking on caffeine clearance. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 1978;24(1):40-5.” / “Schrenk D, Brockmeier D, Morike K, Bock KW, Eichelbaum M. A distribution study of CYP1A2 phenotypes among smokers and non-smokers in a cohort of healthy Caucasian volunteers. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 1998;53(5):361-7.”)

Dietary vegetable intake

(“Lampe JW, King IB, Li S, Grate MT, Barale KV, Chen C, Feng Z, Potter JD. Brassica vegetables increase and apiaceous vegetables decrease cytochrome P450 1A2 activity in humans: changes in caffeine metabolite ratios in response to controlled vegetable diets. Carcinogenesis. 2000;21(6):1157-62.”)

Oral contraceptive use

(“Abernethy DR, Todd EL. Impairment of caffeine clearance by chronic use of low-dose oestrogen-containing oral contraceptives. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 1985;28(4):425-8.” / “Rietveld EC, Broekman MM, Houben JJ, Eskes TK, Van Rossum JM. Rapid onset of an increase in caffeine residence time in young women due to oral contraceptive steroids. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 1984;26(3):371-3.”)

Pregnancy

(“Knutti R, Rothweiler H, Schlatter C. Effect of pregnancy on the pharmacokinetics of caffeine. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 1981;21(2):121-6.”)

Menstrual cycle stage

(“Lane JD, Steege JF, Rupp SL, Kuhn CM. Menstrual cycle effects on caffeine elimination in the human female. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 1992;43(5):543-6.”)

Training status

(“Vistisen K, Poulsen HE, Loft S. Foreign compound metabolism capacity in man measured from metabolites of dietary caffeine. Carcinogenesis. 1992;13(9):1561-8.“ / “Kochanska-Dziurowicz AA, Janikowska G, Bijak A, StanjekCichoracka A, Mazurek U. The effect of maximal physical exercise on relationships between the growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and transcriptional activity of CYP1A2 in young ice hockey players. J Sports Med Phys Fit. 2015;55(3):158-63.”)

Hormone replacement therapy

(“Pollock BG, Wylie M, Stack JA, Sorisio DA, Thompson DS, Kirshner MA, Folan MM, Condifer KA. Inhibition of caffeine metabolism by estrogen replacement therapy in postmenopausal women. J Clin Pharmacol. 1999;39(9):936-40.”)

Caffeine dose

(“Graham TE, Spriet LL. Metabolic, catecholamine, and exercise performance responses to various doses of caffeine. J Appl Physiol. 1995;78(3):867-74.”)

Age

(“Tallis J, James RS, Cox VM, Duncan MJ. Is the ergogenicity of caffeine affected by increasing age? The direct effect of a physiological concentration of caffeine on the power output of maximally stimulated EDL and diaphragm muscle isolated from the mouse. J Nutr Health Aging. 2017;21(4):1-9.”)

Timing

(“Boyett JC, Giersch GE, Womack CJ, Saunders MJ, Hughey CA, Daley HM, Luden ND. Time of day and training status both impact the efficacy of caffeine for short duration cycling performance. Nutrients. 2016;8(10):639.”)

Time of day

(“Boyett JC, Giersch GE, Womack CJ, Saunders MJ, Hughey CA, Daley HM, Luden ND. Time of day and training status both impact the efficacy of caffeine for short duration cycling performance. Nutrients. 2016;8(10):639. / Mora-Rodríguez R, Pallares JG, Lopez-Gullon JM, Lopez-Samanes A, Fernandez-Elías VE, Ortega JF. Improvements on neuromuscular performance with caffeine ingestion depend on the time-of-day. J Sci Med Sport. 2015;18(3):338-42.”)

Training status

(“Collomp K, Ahmaidi S, Chatard JC, Audran M, Prefaut C. Benefits of caffeine ingestion on sprint performance in trained and untrained swimmers. Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1992;64(4):377-80.“ / ”LeBlanc JA, Jobin MI, Cote J, Samson PI, Labrie AN. Enhanced metabolic response to caffeine in exercise-trained human subjects. J Appl Physiol. 1985;59(3):832-7.”)

Good reading for all details:

Research summarizing finding: Pickering, Craig; Kiely, John, Jan 2018. Are the Current Guidelines on Caffeine Use in Sport Optimal for Everyone? Inter-individual Variation in Caffeine Ergogenicity, and a Move Towards Personalised Sports Nutrition. Sports Medicine. Auckland Vol. 48, N° 1, 7-16. DOI:10.1007/s40279-017-0776-1 (ProQuest)

Other researcher like Grgic and Pickering have proved that caffeine is:

Performance enhancing
Pain reducing

But that there is a lack of information and studies around women and elderly people. Noting that it might have less effects on older muscles. The dose of caffeine also here depends on many factors which are environmental, genetical and it also refers to doses of caffeine before exercise or during the exercises. The interesting finding is that caffeine has more effect on the lower body than the upper body part. It has proved that for knee extensor muscles, caffeine increases isokinetic strength performance.

(“Grgic, Jozo; Pickering, Craig, Mar 2019. The effects of caffeine ingestion on isokinetic muscular strength: A meta-analysis. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport; Belconnen Vol. 22, N° 3, 353-360. DOI:10.1016/j.jsams.2018.08.016”)

4) CAFFEINE ENDURANCE SPORTS:

(“Shen, Joy G; Brooks, Meredith B; Cincotta, Jessica; Manjourides, Justin D, Feb 2019. Establishing a relationship between the effect of caffeine and duration of endurance athletic time trial events: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport; Belconnen Vol. 22, N° 2, (Feb 2019): 232. DOI:10.1016/j.jsams.2018.07.022”)

Researchers have proved that caffeine has greater performance enhancing effects on sports requiring long endurance time-trial. “the effect size of caffeine increases along with the increasing duration of the event” and observed that caffeine intake is done before and during the competition pointing the example of Ironman competitors.

CONCLUSION: Take-Away!

Coffee has been proved to be good one hour before exercising and for endurance sports it is very effective specially if taken during the exercise with small intakes. The subject has been hard for scientist to find a linearity in the results because some non-genetic factors influences their findings with people who are already regular coffee drinker and the limits of the research not exposing women and elderly people. Some can’t have coffee at all, so they are searching online for non caffeine pre workout tips. At this time the suggestion would be to eat well and have lots of vitamins in order to be lucid while exercising and prevent any trouble.

Enjoy! Hope this could help you a bit in your caffeine and sport performance research.

Have a full overview by entering the Chikara Houses Rules Rooms and Chikara Houses Needs Rooms:

9 Rules Rooms: