Can Coffee Improve Your Workouts - And Is It Good For You?
Coffee - Is It Good For You And Will It Improve Your Workouts?
By the way, if you want to read the article, keep scrolling below. If you want to watch the video instead, it’s right here:
The vast majority of the world loves coffee. It’s usually not just cause of the taste.. Coffee has a substantial amount of caffeine that may have some benefits, but it’s also categorized as a drug that can be addictive and can be accompanied by some of the same adverse effects of other addictions.
This article is all about the benefits that coffee can offer you along with a few potential concerns that come with drinking coffee.
Benefits
Exercise Performance
Once you consider exercise performance, the conversation quickly switches from coffee to caffeine as it’s the nutrient in coffee that has the biggest effect on performance. Caffeine has been shown to improve every type of performance measure out there. From cardio endurance, to strength to power. It’s also a huge mental stimulant. If you’re a regular coffee drinker I’m sure you need a coffee in the morning and as a pick me up in the afternoon. This is because it can keep you mentally sharp (IF you don’t overdo it).
One study showed that participants who consumed coffee before a 1 mile race was 1.9% faster than the decaf group. That may not seem like much but it’s important to know that the group was a highly trained running group. This means they’re likely in a similar playing field where every incremental improvement can help!
Another study compared people who drank coffee, decaf + caffeine pill vs placebo in a max strength test consisting of squat and bench press. The coffee and decaf + caffeine had a significantly edge in strength over the placebo.
Health Benefits
Coffee is packed with anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants help remove potentially harmful free radicals in the body. They are a crucial aspect to health.
Coffee consumption may also be neuroprotective. This means they may help prevent degenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.
There are other potential health benefits such as decreasing risk of diabetes and heart disease. Scientists aren’t entirely sure how yet, but some studies show that coffee drinkers had up to 12% less instances of heart failure. There are so many more examples and reasons to dive deeper into these claims but this article is mostly about coffee and how it relates to exercise performance!
Potential Adverse Effects
Just like anything in life, too much of one thing is no good. Same goes for coffee. Here are a few things to be careful about.
Caffeine can have negative effects if you overconsume it. The daily recommended dosage is roughly 400mg. However, keep in mind that everybody is different and some people may be able to tolerate more or less. There is research to prove that there is an individual difference in caffeine sensitivity as well.
Here are some of the negative effects of consuming TOO MUCH caffeine:
Increased Anxiety
Restlessness
Nervousness
Insomnia
Trouble Falling Asleep
Upset Stomach (Gut Rot)
Nausea
If you’re a coffee drinker there’s a chance you’ve experienced one of more of those before. Now I know you’re wondering how much coffee equates to 400mg of caffeine?
Well the answer isn’t black and white. Different beans, different roasts and different ways of making/extracting coffee all have an impact on how much caffeine.
A quick Google search will tell you an 8oz cup of coffee has roughly 95mg according to the USDA. But consider this, a venti from Starbucks is actually 20 fluid oz. Meaning it’s 2.5 times the size of an 8oz coffee so it’ll have about 250mg of caffeine.
That’s just one coffee. So if you like to have multiple in a day, try to keep it to smaller 8-12oz sizes. This means you can have 2-3 beautiful cups of energy filled coffee without experiencing the negative effects.
Now there’s one more aspect to consider. Most of you want to get leaner. So does coffee play a role in fat loss? or does it contribute it fat gain?
Well, technically both. There’s some research showing that caffeine can increase your metabolic rate of fat usage by 5-12%. This however is also considering the fact that these people did in fact exercise that day. Exercise as we know, has the biggest effect on stimulating your metabolic rate after a workout.
So how can it contribute to fat gain?
Are you someone who puts sugar and cream in your coffee? That can add over 100 calories per cup! If you’re trying to lose weight you should decrease the amount of additives in your coffee or even cut them out completely.. Do you HAVE to? No. You can still lose weight with putting milk and sugar into your coffee.. But YOU MUST keep in mind that in order to lose weight, you must consume less calories than you expend. So you either cut calories in your meals, or you can do simple tricks such as not adding to your coffee.
If the taste of black coffee is too strong or bitter, consider adding a low calorie sweetener or cutting the sugar/milk in half. It just might save you a couple hundred cals / day and if losing weight is difficult for you, every calorie counts.
Moral of the story: coffee can help give your workouts and your fat loss a boost! Just don’t drink too much!
References
Trexler, Eric T., et al. "Effects of coffee and caffeine anhydrous on strength and sprint performance." European journal of sport science 16.6 (2016): 702-710.
Graham, T. E., E. Hibbert, and P. Sathasivam. "Metabolic and exercise endurance effects of coffee and caffeine ingestion." Journal of Applied Physiology 85.3 (1998): 883-889.
Richardson, Darren L., and Neil D. Clarke. "Effect of coffee and caffeine ingestion on resistance exercise performance." Journal of strength and conditioning research 30.10 (2016): 2892-2900.
Clarke, Neil D., et al. "Coffee ingestion enhances 1-mile running race performance." International journal of sports physiology and performance 13.6 (2018): 789-794.
Google Search “caffeine USDA”