One particular coffee-related conversation that I normally choose to avoid is the treatment of coffee as fuel. Ideally quality should be the only topic of discussion but caffeine is a part of coffee and can’t be ignored. Some recent reading that I was doing helped me to understand a little bit more about what caffeine does. We’re all aware that caffeine keeps us awake but it is not a source of energy for the body, rather quite the opposite. Caffeine is an adenosine inhibitor. As ATP energy is used by the body adenosine accumulates triggering the sleep cycle. Caffeine helps to reduce the effect of adenosine but does not actively fuel any of the bodies systems… or does it?
Coffee and cycling have a relationship that dates back a long time that was highlighted in the 1960s by the Faema sponsored team led by Eddie Merckx. Later on there would be teams sponsored by Saeco and Lampre-Caffita. I recently read a couple of medical journals that I obtained through the UBC database on cycling performance and endurance due to the effects of caffeine. The results were quite interesting. What the researchers found is that coffee and more specifically caffeine have numerous benefits that aid in endurance. Here’s a quick recap:
Caffeine is a diuretic because it increases blood flow through the kidneys. The increased blood flow throughout the body helps to carry more oxygen to all your muscles helping to prevent the build up of lactic acid. Blood flow is increased through the lungs to which air is more rapidly absorbed because caffeine has a relaxing effect on bronchiolar and alveolar smooth muscle.
Previous testing using caffeine to prevent muscle fatigue only showed results in very high doses (the equivalent of 8 to 9 cups of coffee). More thorough testing proved that even the lowest levels of caffeine that were tested still had a marked improvement on performance compared to a group of test subjects who were submitted a placebo.
Caffeine is a ergogenic aid that increases lipolysis and fat oxidation and reduces glycogen breakdown. This leaves more useable glycogen for the later stages of exertion and increases the amount of energy available through you fat stores.
The time to exhaustion factor was increased by an average of 27% using a VO2 max test to measure the level of participant exhaustion. Power did not increase amongst the cyclists but the amount of time they were able to sustain the test increased in correlation with the amount of caffeine they had ingested. Levels of 100 mg (1 cup of coffee) seemed to be an optimal dosage with little improvement being shown in regards to endurance at higher levels.
Test subjects were also asked to record the amount of time that they thought they had been exercising both on dosages of caffeine and on a placebo. The perception of time elapsed decreased amongst the caffeine trial by an average of ten minutes over a 45-minute workout.
I always drink a cup of coffee after I finish a workout, but perhaps I need to change the routine.
