Learn what caffeine does to your body and if it’s fair.
Is Caffeine Cheating? — Dosing Before Hard Workouts
As athletes progress and dive into deeper and harder sections of their training plans, they often start to worry about “cheating” their workouts. They want to work as hard as possible so they can keep making gains, so they avoid anything that could make a workout easier. This is an admirable attitude, but brings up some interesting questions and thought patterns. I’ve had a few reach out to me with similar concerns and it’s time to put those to bed.
Caffeine’s Ergogenic Effects
If you just want the answer, skip this section. It’s full of science and whatnot that’s very interesting! But it’s not right to the point.
Caffeine is the second-most common drug we consume (behind sugar), and one that brings about definite benefits for athletes. Caffeine has a double effect, working on specific muscular and neural receptors to help them work more rapidly while also clearing out molecular wastes that build up as byproducts of exercise. This helps muscles and neurons work both longer and faster, helping decrease time to exhaustion and increase excitability. Caffeine has other ergogenic effects that are less documented (boosting lipid metabolism, for one) but we’re focusing on these two elements today.
At the cellular level, the energy supply is predominantly ATP, adenosine triphosphate. This high energy molecule is formed via the breakdown of carbohydrates and lipids, then used to power cells. From an exercise perspective, ATP’s most important contribution is in muscles, where it is used to unbind calcium ions from proteins so those proteins can rebind and keep the muscle contracting. Muscles work via shortening — contraction — and ATP helps that continue. When ATP is used, it’s converted to ADP, adenosine diphosphate. ADP is where caffeine can exert its effects.
Like most systems in your body, the energy system is controlled by a negative feedback loop. Lots of ADP indicates that lots of ATP is being used. Lots of ATP being used probably means that you’re working very hard, so your body detects a high amount of ADP as fatigue. More ADP indicates more fatigue, and this message is detected by your cells and passed up to your brain. (This is a reductive description of what’s going on here, but good enough to describe caffeine’s effects.) Caffeine helps boost ADP clearance, pushing it out of its resting place and moving it into places where it can be reprocessed into ATP. By doing so, caffeine helps trick your cells into feeling less tired. Since ADP isn’t providing negative feedback and slowing cells down, they’re able to continue at a high pace, putting out more effort.
If you skipped the last section, here’s where you should jump back in
Caffeine and Training
Since caffeine makes your muscles feel less tired, it’s undoubtedly an aid to exercise. Most of us have experienced this after consuming a caffeine gel and there’s a reason that WADA has set an upper limit on the amount of caffeine allowed in one’s urine. It’s definitely an ergogenic aid, so does it decrease training effectiveness? No. If anything, it increases it.
With caffeine stimulating muscles and nerves while clearing away waste products, you’re able to do more work and put out more effort. If you’re able to put out more effort, you’ll have increased training effectiveness and gain more from the session. You progress as an athlete by applying stress, recovering, then applying a higher level of stress. Each period of work stimulates the body to rebuild more strongly next time, increasing physical fitness. Periods of increased work increase fitness even more. If caffeine allows you to work harder, then it will also allow you to reap larger benefits from your period of exercise. Anything that helps you push harder during a workout is going to increase the gains that the workout provides. Caffeine (coffee specifically) happens to do it in a tasty way.
Increase Output, Increase Fitness
If caffeine allows you to complete more intervals, hold higher wattages at the end of intervals, or go for an extra ten or twenty minutes, it’s going to help you gain more fitness and ability. The same goes for many other aids as well. Fueling adequately before and during workouts will increase workout gains. Listening to inspiring music, riding in inspiring locations, or watching an inspiring bike race on the trainer all help you work harder and produce more gains.
Obviously, there are limits to caffeine’s effects and you shouldn’t abuse it by taking too much or taking it at the wrong time. Taking caffeine to push yourself to work out when your body is screaming for a rest day is a mistake. Taking caffeine to nudge up your performance when your legs are “a bit off” is a good practice. Anything you can do to safely increase your output when training will provide you with more fitness after you recover.
The key words are: after you recover. Don’t use caffeine, loud music, Strava segments, or inspiring scenery to turn a recovery day into a training day. Do use them to turn a good training day into a great one.
Luke is a physiologist and cycling coach who loves answering your questions about training and racing. If you have a question for him, get in touch via the form below. We’ll answer it in a future post!
