Special thanks to Ben Freeman, owner and head coach at The Fitt House Gym in Essex for co-authoring this post. Check Ben out at www.fittuk.com and drop him a line at Benfreeman@fittuk.com.
Does caffeine improve your performance in sport or resistance training?
The short answer is yes! Great, article done - let’s move on! 😄.
However, in order to use caffeine for maximum benefit, it’s important to know how it improves your performance, so you can use it to really push yourself in both training and in the competition arena.
Caffeine has many tremendous benefits, especially if you're a parent that needs a little extra kick each day after the 2am feed.
Personally, a coffee before training gets me fired up and focused on the task ahead. I need my mind laser-focused - visualising lifting those heavy weights and achieving my daily training goal – be it reps or poundage (or both!).
Which is exactly what coffee does for me, and why I drink Bondi Coffee’s Lean Green coffee blend before a workout, which contains 166mg of caffeine (the equivalent of 2 cups of regular coffee).
But how does it work? Reading this journal article gives some great insight to actually how the caffeine improves certain aspects of your performance: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Fulltext/2010/01000/Efficacy_of_Acute_Caffeine_Ingestion_for.38.aspx.
6 out of 11 studies showed caffeine gives a big improvement in performance in the form of torque, the number of repetitions or weight lifted. If you are a bit of a gym rat that's the sort of science you want to see.
Caffeine is more likely to increase the number of repetitions rather than your 1 rep max, which is not a bad thing for the strength enthusiast. In training, an extra rep or two of a certain weight gives you terrific neural and muscular adaptations, which you can then utilise down the line when you want to retest your 1 rep max.
If you compete in CrossFit or strongman/strongwomen you will have an event for repetitions, so caffeine is a big plus before a competition/event.
Sprinting or activities simulating team sports showed an improvement in performance from 11 of 17 studies. This ranged anything from 1-20% improvement – which is huge!
Remember - the harder you can train, the better prepared your body is for competition.
I am not going to go into ‘crazy science mode’, because most of you are probably a bit like me – you just want to know the nuts and bolts – what works!
The take-home is this -> caffeine can definitely improve your overall performance, and by a lot!
Bondi Coffee Lean-Green and Workout Booster both contain a double-shot of caffeine in each serving.
Lean-Green contains 7 added vegan superfood ingredients to help you look your best and feel your best each day.
Workout Booster contains MCTs, BCAAs, Beta-Alanine, Vitamins B3, B6, B12, and guarana. It's guaranteed to boost your performance and aid your recovery.
Both blends are available at www.bondicoffee.com
