There are different physiological mechanisms that explain the beneficial effects of caffeine on endurance sports performance. Some of them are easy to understand if we think about the stimulating effect that we experience when consuming coffee: less feeling of fatigue and therefore greater concentration. In the world of sports, this benefit translates into a reduction in perceived fatigue during exercise, a certain analgesic effect, as well as an improvement in reaction time, concentration and alertness.
However, the beneficial effects are not increased by increasing the dose of caffeine. Low and moderate doses of caffeine (3-6 mg / kg of body weight; or what is the same, between 210 and 420 mg in a person weighing 70 kg) can exert positive effects and, however, high doses (more than 9 mg / kg of body weight; the equivalent of more than 630 mg for a person weighing 70 kg) can reduce sports performance and lead to multiple adverse effects but such as gastrointestinal discomfort, anxiety, agitation, nervousness, difficulty concentrating, impaired mood, nausea, and sleep problems .
Another effect that is often attributed to caffeine is a slight increase in urine output. However, the latest research suggests that this increase does not seem to affect exercise and therefore does not promote the dehydration that is so worrisome for the endurance athlete.
Caffeine content depending on the drink
The caffeine content of a coffee can vary from 40-70 mg of espresso to 100 mg or more of soluble or American-type drip coffee. Energy drinks contain around 80 mg of caffeine in 250 ml of product. Regarding teas, depending on the type, the content may vary: 20 mg in a green tea or 45 mg in a black tea. Some soft drinks have around 20-40 mg of caffeine and cocoa drinks can contain around 15 mg. There are also caffeinated drugs that can provide up to 300 mg of caffeine.
Caffeine capsules or caffeine gums used as sports supplementation can come in different formats, although it is common to find them with a content between 100 and 200 mg of caffeine . Caffeinated gels tend to have a somewhat lower content (about 50 mg), although there is a great variety of them. In recent years, in addition, new forms of supplementation such as mouthwashes and oral and nasal sprays are being investigated.
Genetic and environmental factors
On the other hand, there are genes that determine the response to caffeine; that is, if it will benefit your physical or cognitive performance or if you will experience its adverse effects more easily. Therefore, there are people, who even with low doses will experience its adverse effects and their performance will not be benefited.
In addition to genetics, there are other important environmental factors that determine how caffeine improves our performance, it is especially food and training, since it will be of little use to use caffeine before a competition, if you do not take care of your diet and hydration and do a good training program, since the main factors are not optimized. Other influencing aspects are tobacco use or drug use.
The best way to know if caffeine will help you improve your performance is to try it before competition, although it is always better to do it under the supervision of nutrition and sports training professionals. Here are some easy tips on how to do it:
In the first place, if you have found that coffee does not suit you in your day to day, it causes you nervousness, gastrointestinal upset or some other adverse effect, it is difficult that supplementing it in this way will benefit you. If your main problem is gastrointestinal upset, you could try using caffeinated gum. On the contrary, it makes you nervous or affects your rest, you could try using low doses.
If you are not aware that coffee feels bad, you can introduce caffeine, in low doses, in some training and see what feelings you have.
Once caffeine has been tried, you will be able to determine if it produces adverse effects such as difficulty concentrating, nervousness, gastrointestinal discomfort, if it affected your rest; or yes, on the contrary, you did not have any adverse effect and you noticed an improvement in your performance such as perceiving less fatigue.
You can try different doses, always starting with lower doses and gradually increasing depending on the effects you perceive.
One issue to keep in mind is that caffeine usually begins to act between 40 and 60 minutes after its consumption (in case of using gum it is faster) , so its intake can be tested at different times. For example, before starting the exercise or also before starting the most important or difficult part of the training if it is longer.
In general, once we have determined that caffeine benefits us, and we do not observe adverse effects, we could incorporate it as a supplement. It must be considered that, to maximize its effects, it is preferable to reserve it for competitions and for those workouts that are more complicated, since getting used to consuming it may reduce its possible benefits.
Dr. Helios Pareja Galeano and MarÃa MartÃnez Ferrán are researchers at the European University in the Exercise Physiology and Nutrition Research Group.
