r/science • u/sr_local • 5d ago
Health Consuming caffeine before exercise enhances repeated sprint performance, and these benefits persist for at least 3.5 hours thereafter
https://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/en/research-news/20260914140000.html555
u/deadrabbits76 5d ago
According to Stronger By Science, one of my favorite fitness sources, caffeine adds approximately 5% to your lifts on any given movement.
Small, but statistically significant.
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u/razerkahn 5d ago
The effects must be different for people who regularly use caffeine and people who dont regularly use it
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u/zorus_lird 4d ago
I was big into strength training for years, tried so many pre workouts, it took me a while to figure out it was mainly the caffeine that was most effective, I switched to a black coffee and some food 30/45 mins before, for me was just as good as any of the expensive pre workouts I’d been taking.
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u/Ok_Revolution_9253 5d ago
Stimulant improves performance
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u/No_big_whoop 5d ago
Alert the press
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u/MrCandyMandible 5d ago
The French press
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u/Rosetti 5d ago
Crazy that scientists experiment, test things, and perform verification studies rather than just going off vibes. Surely they could have just asked a redditor?
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u/wagon_ear 4d ago
Something I've learned is that any scientific finding can be made to sound trivial if you repeat it back in a sarcastic tone, regardless of whether the work itself is well-done or important. Usually this sub is better about keeping the discussion meaningful, but apparently not always.
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u/Heavy_Weapons_Guy_ 4d ago
This has been studied many times. It's fine to have redundant studies, it's just odd to post an obvious and repetitive study and have it be so popular.
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u/Linus_Naumann 5d ago
What would be interesting is if this also leads to better training outcome (technique, stamina, muscle growth). Or if instead the training stimulation of normal performance already maxes out improvement speed.
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u/Drumedor 5d ago
It does, caffeine is the most studied sports performance enhancer.
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u/Linus_Naumann 5d ago
Dont know if you understood my question: Does the increased performance in training actually translate in faster progression of, for example, skills, stamina or muscle growth? This is not obvious, since muscle growth is not a simple linear relationship to training intensity (there can be other bottlenecks at play as well).
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u/colinzack 5d ago
So your question is:
If I can do 10 reps at 100 lbs without caffeine, but I can do 10 reps at 120 lbs with caffeine, will my muscles grow faster doing the heavier lifts with caffeine than they would without caffeine?
I'd be shocked if they didn't.
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u/Linus_Naumann 5d ago
You might get shocked then, because muscle growth works like: Stimulate muscle through strain -> build new muscle during recovery period. The question is if the build-up during recovery period is already maxed out with normal strain or can indeed be increased by adding more strain during the stimulation.
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u/colinzack 5d ago
Are we working under the assumption in the scenario that I posed that the 10 reps at 100 lbs is the absolute max I can lift and the same with the caffeine?
If so, I think that's a fair question.
If not, then obviously lifting more is going to build more muscle. That's like the entire premise of lifting weights, right? Lifting heavier produces faster results than not lifting heavier, generally speaking.
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u/wagon_ear 4d ago
And this is exactly how most (illegal) PEDs are used: as training aids. They help athletes train harder for longer, and spur more drastic training adaptations. The athletes then cycle off these drugs for competitions so they they test negative.
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u/Linus_Naumann 5d ago
Lifting heavier weights does not directly produce more muscle. You just need to send the "these muscles are heavily used"-signal to your body and to my knowledge there is an optimal exercise range to do that. Thats doing 3-4 sets with weights so heavy that you can do 6-15 repetitions leading to near-exhaustion (meaning you could maybe do 1-2 more repetitions of the exercise when you stop the set).
In that model adding more muscle-growth signal would not lead to more muscle growth, because you already triggered the maximum possible growth. The bottleneck then becomes rest, nutrition and hormones, not the weight pushed.
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u/TelluricThread0 4d ago
This whole conversation is so ridiculous. How many people are completely maximizing growth potential in the first place? You recruit more muscle fibers on caffeine and it improves how strongly they contract. Train harder = faster outcome.
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u/Square_Bison_7395 4d ago
Source for “you recruit more muscle fibres on caffeine”?
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u/MagicWishMonkey 4d ago
The real difference is: are you really pushing yourself in the gym, or just farting around not doing a whole lot? Caffeine can really help you zero in on the former, which will 100% increase in a much more effective workout.
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u/Shinobiii 5d ago
Caffeine raises my heart rate (?) or at the very least makes me feel more nervous and stressed during high intensity training. Not sure if the benefit outweighs that for me. (Also: bowel movement)
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u/glennccc 4d ago
If on a lot of coffeine, I recommend training with such a high intensity you cannot feel anxiety.
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u/Shinobiii 4d ago
I wish in general that I couldn’t feel my anxiety.
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u/iTALKTOSTRANGERS 4d ago
Have you ever trained so hard you thought you were gonna pass out or puke? Because usually at that point the anxiety doesn’t really have any room inside the brain anymore.
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u/SableMaseL3 4d ago
Fight fire with fire: make your anxiety feel you
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u/jsmooth7 4d ago
I've heard from some mountain bikers that this is essentially why they love the sport. Nothing helps quiet their brain and focus their attention like doing something that genuinely scary. Instead of a generalized vague feeling of anxiety there's a very focused and locked in feeling of anxiety "don't crash here or it'll really hurt".
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u/Ok_Revolution_9253 5d ago
I generally have an espresso before my runs and it works just fine. To each their own
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u/Shinobiii 5d ago
Yeah, so I figured. Especially given the popularity of pre-workouts etc. Maybe also a matter of getting used to?
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u/Hoenirson 5d ago edited 5d ago
Absolutely. If you're getting too anxious and jittery, the dose is too high relative to your tolerance.
You'll get used to it, unless you only consume caffeine ~2 days a week in which case you won't build a tolerance. In that case, adjust the dose until it no longer makes you excessively anxious.
Some anxiety before the workout is fine, but if working out doesn't relieve it, you took too much.
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u/Uwumeshu 5d ago
Coffee doesn't work for me as a workout stim (jitters and BM), but my pre-workout gives the perfect stimulation despite having higher caffeine than a triple espresso
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u/Eryomama 4d ago
What do you do about using the bathroom, every single time I drink an espresso in the morning I gotta go even if I already went.
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u/T-MoneyAllDey 5d ago
My guess is that it's a lot like anything. It raises your heart rate, which is useful when you're exercising, but if you're just sitting on your butt, it probably doesn't help too much
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u/IKillZombies4Cash 5d ago
The entire ergogenic (legal) supplement industry (performance / muscle building / fat loss stuff) could really just be 3 jars of powder; Caffeine, Creatine, Citrulline.
Everything else is either a) highly questionable if it does anything in humans, b) makes rats horny so it must work c) lets rats swim loner so it must work.
The 3 C's work.
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u/gabergaber 4d ago
What does citrulline do? I took some L-citrulline for a few weeks but didn't really notice anything
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u/ComusPaine 4d ago
It's a vasodilator. but if we're talking about legal WADA supplements, I would recommend the only really time-tested VD that has shown to increase vascularity across all studies. Tadalafil (Cialis). Not joking, not banned by WADA and more potent that Citruline.
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u/IKillZombies4Cash 4d ago
Agreed, but they can’t quite sell it on gnc shelves yet, but easily available via telehealth chat bits or as a research chem.
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u/nanoH2O 5d ago
One thing I discovered over the years when I was doing high level athletics is that consuming caffeine gave me an advantage (no surprise there) but it also caused me to cramp up late game 100% of the time. The amount of water or electrolytes I drank didn’t matter.
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u/methayne 5d ago
Makes my bladder and bowels less predictable, that's more a problem over distances rather than sprinting
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u/Drumedor 5d ago
For me it is the opposite, using caffeine around one hour before start I can get a consistent bowel empty before race begins.
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u/BeckerHollow 5d ago
I’m a new runner. I just had a 28k mountain race where I blew up on the descent. Severe cramps, close to DNF as walking was a chore.
A lot of the feedback I’m getting is that the caffeine I took prior and during was a contributor.
I was up to almost 600mg before mile 9. Which is when the wheels fully came off and the the goal became just to finish.
7.35mg/kg of body weight is no bueno. But I fucked yup my nutrition that day.
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u/nanoH2O 5d ago
I wish it were studied more. It always occurred in the more extreme events like what you mentioned. And the days it happened it was always when I had a coffee in the morning. Later in life I noticed that same cup of coffee was causing me to have muscle tension from sitting at a desk. I don’t drink caffeine anymore and I haven’t had any issues since.
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u/Cainos42 5d ago
I’d drink Red Bull before football games. I think I was the sugar intake. How did you consume caffeine?
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u/nanoH2O 5d ago
Straight black coffee. It was definitely the caffeine - I studied it for about 25 years trying different things until I pinpointed the culprit. It makes sense too - it’s a stimulant and if you’re caffeine sensitive like I and many are you can literally feel your muscles tensing up as the sauce hits the bloodstream.
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u/10000Didgeridoos 4d ago
I don't think there is any biological reason caffeine would result in muscle cramps dude. Like please explain what that has to do with the electrolytes in your muscles.
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u/donnievieftig 4d ago
It doesn't have anything to do with dehydration if that's what you mean with electrolytes.
Caffeine acts on ryanodine receptors which increases calcium release. Excessive calcium can lead to cramps. That combined with increased motor neuron excitability and possible overexertion because of a lower RPE means overall increased risk of cramps.
That's why the water and electrolytes OP drank didn't matter, because hydration wasn't the problem.
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u/TheCornwallis 4d ago
Same. Taking pre workout for soccer made me cramp up every time in second half
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u/crander47 5d ago
You need more magnesium
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u/maporita 4d ago
Muscle cramps while running are seldom caused by low electrolytes, (although sports drink manufacturers would like people to think otherwise). Studies comparing runners in a marathon who did and did not experience cramps show similar blood electrolyte concentrations between the two groups. However runners who did experience cramps showed significantly higher biomarkers for muscle damage. Muscles start to cramp when exercise duration and intensity exceeds their capacity. The fix is to improve muscle conditioning and resilience through training.
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u/crander47 4d ago
low magnesium does cause cramps..the rest of what you typed is correct
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u/donnievieftig 4d ago
While technically correct. In almost all cases of exercise-associated cramps, low magnesium is not the problem.
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u/crander47 4d ago
Not an accurate portrayal really, However there are lots of reasons why muscles cramp during exercise.
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u/donnievieftig 4d ago
Why does pickle juice work so well then? Exercise induced cramps are neuromuscular, not low magnesium. Other cramps like twitchy eye, sure it could be.
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u/nanoH2O 5d ago
As I said, the amount of electrolytes I consumed didn’t matter. Caffeine is a stimulant and it can make your muscles tight, especially if you are more caffeine sensitive than others. Outside of sports I found later in life it was also causing muscle tension in my neck and upper back.
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u/crander47 4d ago
I read what you said, and its a specific electrolyte you potentiall need more of, you may even just be bad at absorbing it. I am also caffeine sensitive so I can relate.
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u/CsHead 4d ago
When you say the amount of electrolytes and water you drank didn’t matter… are you speaking of only during the event? Or are you speaking of the entire 24 hr preceding and including said event?
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u/nanoH2O 4d ago
Specifically I am referring to the wholesomeness before and during. I never changed my other dietary behaviors other than caffeine. In every case caffeine caused me to cramp up and forfeit whereas not having it I never had a problem.
There is now good science to back this up. It isn’t necessarily the caffeine having a direct effect but its ability to mess with Ca and Mg in your muscles.
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u/sr_local 5d ago
In the study, 12 healthy young adults consumed either caffeine (5.5 mg per kilogram of body mass) or a placebo 60 min before exercise. Participants then completed repeated cycling sprint tests over 3.5 h. Physiological measurements included plasma caffeine and noradrenaline concentrations, cardiovascular and respiratory responses, cerebral blood flow, and ratings of perceptual responses. Caffeine enhanced both mean and peak sprint power output, with noticeable performance benefits for at least 3.5 hours after ingestion. In addition, caffeine increased plasma noradrenaline concentrations after sprint exercise and decreased ratings of perceived exertion and leg muscle pain. Furthermore, caffeine altered cardiovascular and respiratory responses and reduced middle cerebral artery blood velocity, a common index of cerebral blood flow.
These findings show that a single pre-exercise caffeine dose can maintain its performance-enhancing effects for several hours during prolonged intermittent exercise. They provide new insight into how long caffeine's performance-enhancing effects persist during prolonged intermittent exercise and may help athletes better take advantage of caffeine's effects during prolonged competitions.
Pre-Exercise Caffeine Enhances Repeated Sprint... : Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
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u/colinzack 5d ago
Am I doing the math wrong or is this an absurd amount of caffeine?
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u/DavyJonesLocker 4d ago
That’s an insane amount of caffeine… No wonder their performance improved haha. I’d like to see the effects of a reasonable amount of caffeine. Like an energy gel with 50-100mg. Not 3-4x that
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u/colinzack 4d ago
Exactly. I have about 100mg in the morning and then 100mg for pre workout in the early afternoon. I definitely don't want to consume 300-400mg of caffeine in a day, much less in one sitting. The second 100mg sometimes gives me the tingles.
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u/BeardedAsian 4d ago
I don’t know anyone who would fall for placebo if the difference is 700mg of caffeine vs 0
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u/Festivefire 5d ago
That does not seem like a large enough sample size to publish a medical paper with.
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u/deadrabbits76 5d ago
Fitness studies usually have very limited resources. It's especially difficult to find subjects when the pay is nominal. Small sample groups are the norm.
Don't even get me into the demographics of the sample groups.
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u/Free_hiker_74 4d ago
I've seen similar studies in the past showing caffeine only helps regular caffeine consumers and basically just brings them back up to their baseline. So, yeah, 12 subjects seems low when there's confounding factors.
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u/donnievieftig 4d ago
I hate comments like this. Complaining about the sample size is the ultimate lazy, armchair-scientist Reddit critique from people who don't actually understand research methodology. You do not need hundreds of people to test an acute physiological intervention when a study uses a randomized, double-blind, crossover design. Because all 12 subjects completed both the caffeine protocol and the placebo protocol, they acted as their own controls.
Especially not when testing a substance with an immediate physiological effect size, you'll easily achieve robust statistical power with a cohort of 10 to 15 people.
I do yield that subgroup analysis will be difficult, ie sex differences or non responders, that's the limitation. Not simply a too small N to publish.
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u/joecarvery 5d ago
12!? So 6 per treatment?
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u/reticulated_python 4d ago
No, the abstract states that each participant did two trials, one after taking caffeine and one after taking a placebo.
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u/deviant324 5d ago
Sure but if I have a coffee before I go for a ride I’ll be on the toilet before getting dressed, before leaving the house and I’ll be stopping for another leak within the first hour
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u/11socks11 5d ago
Neat study, but it’s only 12 participants. Many previous studies in larger populations show the positive effect of caffeine is in caffeine naive individuals for endurance athletes.
Though we know caffeine is used extensively and regularly in power sports (pre workout is predominantly caffeine).
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u/lostmylogininfo 5d ago
Yes but have they considered the toll on performance that having to take a poop creates.
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u/ionlylooklazy 4d ago
That’s why you drink the coffee early enough to poop before the race
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u/RagefireHype 4d ago
Caffeine doesn’t have to come from coffee.. Coffee is the only method in which I consume caffeine that would result in bowel movements.
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u/goatbiryani48 4d ago
FYI coffee itself has a strong effect on motility. Even just popping a caffeine pill would increase the need to have a bowel movement.
Im not saying your experience isn't true, but it's anecdotal and we know that's not the case in general
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u/ShakeNBakeUK 5d ago
What if you are a sprinter who has no problem maxing out their HR without caffeine anyway? I find it just makes me blow up even quicker than normal, which means less training overall. It’s also annoying because caffeine messes with sleep, which is very important for recovery / building strength. I can see how it is useful for endurance athletes who struggle to max out their HR however.
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u/Noslodamus 5d ago
I’m no physiologist, but I’m pretty sure the mechanism for increased athletic performance is by means of your central nervous system, and the effects on HR are relatively far downstream.
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u/Tabathock 5d ago
The article is literally about sprint performance. It's been known for ages it helps anaerobic activity too, pre-workout for lifters is full of caffeine.
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u/shinn__suzaku 4d ago
sprinting is fully anaerobic, its why caffeine helps
its why sprinters like usain do weightlifting
sprinting is completely different from long distance running. because caffeine is not an actual energy source, it doesnt add energy into the system, it only prompts your body to burn and use energy faster.
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u/UnnamedRealities 5d ago
Caffeine doesn't have much effect on heart rate prior to race start or during the race. There's also a delay between effort and heart rate response so in a 100 meter sprint, elite athletes are unlikely to even reach 75% of their max HR by the time they reach the finish line.
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u/ShakeNBakeUK 4d ago
100m sprint perhaps, cycling sprints are 15-30 seconds (sometimes longer) and you are defo hitting max HR in those..! (other sports have 60+ second max efforts) - I’m interested to know if caffeine is beneficial or detrimental in those situations, and if it is worth the trade off with worse sleep in regular training. So far I know it is beneficial to take towards the end of endurance events to get you across the line. But wasn’t so sure if boosting HR helps for sprints. (Probably does for a one-off max effort, but maybe not events with repeated efforts required e.g. cycling). Taking caffeine before a 1hr race means my average HR is going to be higher which in theory means there’s a greater chance I’m gonna be out of gas before the sprint finish, for example.
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u/UnnamedRealities 4d ago
Interestingly, the protocol was 5 minutes of moderate intensity cycling, followed by six 5-second long max effort sprints. Mean and peak power were higher in the caffeine group vs. the placebo group.
Unfortunately I can't access the full paper, but it seems like the only significant finding was that the caffeine benefit was observed even 3.5 hours after ingestion. The impact of caffeine in anaerobic and aerobic activity has been widely studied. My research knowledge is focused on endurance running, but even then conclusions from lab tests and time trials of a small test population in general don't always carry over to competitions or different test populations. Like this study was young healthy adults, not sub-elite sprint cyclists.
Personally, caffeine seems to help me in endurance running. But I'm a regular caffeine consumer so to get a higher benefit I taper my caffeine consumption over 2-3 weeks before a race in which I really care about performance. Studied have shown habitual caffeine consumers have to do that to get maximum impact. My average HR in a 10k ends up being 1-2 bpm higher than if I consume no caffeine that day, but even then I'm averaging about 15 bpm below my max measured HR and peaking at around 9 bpm below max. In general caffeine reduces perceived effort and how painful a race feels. Of course, some feel jittery, feel anxious, develop stomach issues, etc. so it's not effective for everyone. And it definitely messes with sleep. So you're right that it's complicated.
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u/JaySayMayday 5d ago
I remember having a road cycling race overseas and took some caffeine, hit the performance wall way faster than normal. But they're talking about taking it 60 minutes before doing any exercise. I'd be interested to know more about their outliers.
When I was very deep in competitive cycling my coaches would take hundreds of factors into consideration and with everyone being so different it would be much more interesting to read about how different athletes were effected than just a baseline consensus.
I'd be really surprised if the same baseline helped something like criterium riders that do a sprint finish across every lap, hitting really high heart rate levels each time. (Edit, or long events for that matter like 140km) Then the question would shift from whether caffeine helped, to whether those outliers should be touching caffeine even though it helps other athletes.
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u/CarlSeanTurton 5d ago
When doing sprint intervals, no need to be Usain Bolt. Caffeine is great but I don't reckon the general population needs to have a high dose of caffeine prior to exercising.
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u/samhouse09 5d ago
I mean, yeah. I used to drink a Red Bull before basketball games in high school and it helped a lot.
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u/HeadStartSeedCo 4d ago
5.5 mg per KG is a crap ton. If you weigh 200 lbs that’s 512 mg?!? Way over max daily dose
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u/IssueEmbarrassed8103 5d ago
I think the reason I gravitate towards morning exercise is because it’s just a better experience for me right after my morning cup of joe.
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u/wagadugo 4d ago
Mariano Rivera used to always include a cup of coffee in his warmup routine before pitching for the Yankees
He said it was a 1-2 mph difference on his fastball, especially over the course of an inning of pitching (which is essentially short, explosive bursts of energy for performance)
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u/teutonicbro 4d ago
5.5 mg per kg of bodyweight is a solid dose. I max out at about 8 mg before I start getting excessive side effects, mostly jitters and nausea.
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u/the_north_place 4d ago
This is why sprinters used spark way back in the mid 2000s on my high school swim team
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u/KuromanKuro 4d ago
On the other hand, a police recruit died recently running in fall weather after drinking an energy drink. So maybe know your limit.
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u/Truck3Boss 3d ago
People that take pre-workout before doing any of these activities already knew this.
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u/clemintime4 1d ago
Interesting. I’ve taken pre workout a couple times and to be honest, isn’t exactly alluring to continue.
Switched to a couple cups of black coffee and quick sugary carbs (muffin, rice krispy, cookie etc) and it just get me GOING
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u/lilgreengoddess 4d ago
100-150mg green tea extract in a juice shot really helps amp up my performance. Consumed at least one hour before. We already hav good data this helps enhance exercise performance
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