Every once in a while, we find out that something we actually like to eat, might actually also be good for racing.
Let's talk about an ergogenic aid that may already be a regular part of your daily diet. An ergoenic aid is a substance that enhances performance. There are also ergolythic aids, which are substances that have a detrimental effect on performance. Many substances thought to be ergogenic, are actually ergolythic, and many substances that are ergogenic are ergolythic in high doses. Caffeine is a particularly interesting substance. It is not only common, but it is a cult favorite in the triathlon scene as an ergogenic aid, and you probably have seen many nutritional substances, particularly in gels, that boast of containing caffeine. However, what are the facts about the substance? I have to confess that I have dismissed caffeine as a legitimate ergogenic aid for a long time. I have always believed that the buzz around caffeine (get it, buzz) was just hype, and have never experimented with caffeine.
The first thing that clued me off to caffeine as a legitimate performance enhancing substance, is the discovery that it was a banned substance in the Olympics until 2004. However, like almost all ergogenic aids, it was only banned at a certain ingestion level or at a detected level in the blood or urine. At the IOC’s definition of an illegal dose, an athlete would have to consume 6 cups of strong coffee prior to competing in order to exceed the legal Olympic limit. Not impossible, but that’s a lot of coffee.
A 1991 study from the School of Human Biology, in Ontario, Canada, took 7 trained competitive runners, two trials running to exhaustion and two trials cycling to exhaustion. The athletes ingested either a placebo or caffeine at 9 mg/kg. That would equal about 650mg of caffeine for a 155 pound athlete, which is 3.5 cups of strong coffee. Well below the IOC limit. Also, 650mg of caffeine equals 13 mountain dews, so you would really have to "do the dew" to get that much caffeine. They took the placebo or caffeine 1 hour before exercise. Now, running time to exhaustion increased after caffeine ingestion from 49.2 minutes to 71.0 minutes! And when cycling the caffeine increased time to exhaustion from 39.2min to 59.3. This blows my mind! I think it blew the mind of the researchers too, because one year later, the researchers did almost the exact same test again.
In this second test, eight subjects cycled to exhaustion 1 hour after ingestion of 9 mg/kg of either placebo or caffeine. The athletes cycled 96.2 minutes with the caffeine and 75.8 minutes with the placebo. Holy cow! Note that the athletes were not any faster, but their time to exhaustion significantly increased.
For best effect, the participants refrained from caffeine use 3-4 days before their competition. Another note, the positive effects of caffeine are diminished if the athlete takes in moderate doses of caffeine as part of their regular diet. If you are taking in 300mg of caffeine a day already, you will not get the benefit from caffeine loading. Also, the performance enhancing effects of caffeine are best realized when taken as pure caffeine, as opposed to caffeine mixed with other substances. Meaning, coffee or gels may not be as effective as high-ratio doses in over-the-counter drugs such as Vivrin or No-dose.
However, caffeine is that not simple! There are risks to caffeine. Those risks of caffeine include insomnia and other research indicated that caffeine can be physically addictive and introduce GI problems in some athletes. The concern of caffeine as a diuretic is mixed. While some research supports the risks of caffeine as a diuretic, and possibly a contributor to dehydration, recent research by Larry Armstrong, PhD found that caffeine taken before exercise does not have a significant dehydrating or diuretic effect. He actually compared caffeine-containing beverages to sports electrolyte drinks and water and found about the same amount of urine output among all three groups.
My current opinion is that you should consider incorporating caffeine into your next training plan. Now, don’t go and take in 650mg of caffeine a day, but don’t take it in for the first time on race day. Like any other race-day nutrition strategy, your nutrition and supplements should have been tested in during your training in race-simulation workouts. I’d limit the high-caffeine doses to 2-3 tests in race-simulation workouts before deciding whether or not to use it on race day.
Special thanks to John Martinez, M.D. Medical Director of the Coastal Sports and Wellness Medical Center in San Diego, for his contribution to the accuracy of this blog entry.
This topic was one of several topics covered in Episode 26 of the Tri Talk Triathlon Podcast.