Coffee Talk: Toe the Line With Joe

Seems everyone's looking for some sort of performance advantage in these harrowing days of economic meltdown and early season races. The most emailed story this week on the New York Times website is Gina Kolata's piece on the athletic benefits of caffeine (story). Of course, caffeine's ability to boost performance isn't news to runners, and by now most of us have chosen one camp or the other: Double Shot or Double Not. Still, the piece is an interesting read and like most Times articles provides a lot of info delivered from some interesting angles.

Other posts on coffee/caffeine.

Boost Your Glycogen Stores with a Caffeine Boost? Seems So

If you're like me, and I'm not really sure how many of you there are out there, one of my favorite pleasures following a really long run is a well crafted, high-octane quad latte. And while I've often felt these were wonderful dabbles in excess that did nothing more than reveal my frailties as an athlete -- why else would I need such an energy boost except that I can't handle the distance? -- it turns out they may be exactly what my body needs.

A small but compelling study that came out this summer (and that I read about recently in a column by Monique Ryan in VeloNews) found that a big bolus of caffeine after glycogen-draining exercise can significantly increase the rate at which glycogen stores are restocked in the hours after exercise. Basically, it seems that caffeine can keep the machinery of glucose uptake into muscles well greased over time in the trained athlete.

The study took seven cyclists and had them ride until exhaustion on two separate occasions, about ten days apart. On one of the occasions, they were given standard recovery foods (bars, sports drinks, gels) along with caffeine. On the other occasion, they were just given the foods -- no caffeine. Muscle biopsies afterward revealed that after four hours, the athletes in the caffeine group packed away about a third more glycogen than those in the no-caffeine group. On top of this, the athletes on caffeine had the highest rate of glycogen synthesis ever reported under free-living conditions.

Anyone looking at back-to-back big runs should stand up, take note, and possibly invest in a nice espresso maker.

The one stopper to all of this is the level of caffeine the athletes took in. It was pretty big -- about 560 mg for a 155 pound athlete -- but not extraordinary. A "tall" 12 ounce Starbucks drip has 260 mg. Get a refill and you're pretty much there. How about that quad (four espresso shot) latte? Pretty close, depending on the mix of beans. A Starbucks quad would only be about 300 mg, but some blends can deliver more than two and half times that.

Of course, every athlete's different and caveat, caveat, caveat, but at a minimum, if you enjoy a little caffeine rush after those long runs, it seems there's one more good reason to keep up with it. Cheers.

The Buzz on Caffeine

A lot of folks like to vilify caffeine. It must relate to latent Puritan angst about things that provide pleasure. But, to us at Run Junkie, there’s little we like more than a good dose of great coffee before a run, especially a long run. And, as most of you likely know already, there’s a lot of good data out there showing that it actually does us some good. One 2005 analysis looking at over 20 studies found that taking in caffeine before exercise can not only improve performance but also make the whole affair seem easier overall (study). So, you’re sold, but don’t know the details of how much is enough and how much may be too much. Enter Monique Ryan’s recent piece on VeloNews.com (link). Sure, it’s largely focused on cycling, but she’s one of our favorite endurance sports nutritionists, and it lays out some good guidelines and tips for caffeine intake before and during exercise. So grab that latte and give it a read. Cheers.