Caffeine is an incredibly common supplement used to improve performance in almost every area of life that requires energy. Exercise is no exception, and indeed many people find caffeine to be helpful to their workouts. However, there are certain areas where caffeine is more helpful, and other reasons one might want to avoid it or limit their intake.
Benefits
Caffeine has been found in several studies to be particularly useful in improving endurance and muscle efficiency. It seems that caffeine, after a certain amount of time, causes muscles to increase stored fat usage for energy rather than glycogen (another form of stored energy), which means in practice that they don’t tire out as fast. This means that caffeine intake is a great help to activities like long-distance running, swimming, or biking, and other sports that use constant energy over a long period of time.
However, it’s not clear that caffeine helps for shorter, high-impact activities. Additionally, if what you really need is just the pick-me-up to get you out the door for a workout, caffeine is a perfect solution.
Drawbacks
There are also some setbacks to drinking caffeine too often. The main one is that caffeine is very addictive, and regular intake can lead to dependency. That means it won’t give you as much of a boost to get your workout started as it would otherwise. It’s better to drink a cup of coffee before each workout than every single day or a few times a day.
Too much caffeine can also take a toll on your body by increasing blood pressure, anxiety, stomach acid, and more. Since exercise already raises your blood pressure on its own, be sure to check that your health is not at risk by drinking caffeine before consuming it.
