Caffeine consumption and effects

These notes combine advice from 9 reviewed passages across 7 workouts.

Overview

Coach’s advice

Coffee is a stimulant that some athletes use for its energizing effect, especially around competition. How strongly a cup is felt depends on habit: drinking it every day can dull the stimulation.

Coach’s advice

Coffee’s effect is small. It can sharpen focus by opening receptors, but some substances do this much more strongly. After a long break, the receptors become sensitive again, and a single cup can feel much stronger.

Effect and tolerance

Coach’s advice

The more often coffee is part of the routine, the less its stimulation tends to be noticed. A daily drinker gets used to it, while an occasional cup is felt more.

Coach’s advice

A long break changes the response. Receptors that have rested become sensitive again, so a person who has not had coffee for a long time can feel a single cup much more strongly than a regular drinker does.

Coach’s advice

Some substances can sharpen focus strongly. Coffee can do the same at a much smaller scale, through direct receptor opening.

Use around competition

Coach’s advice

Some athletes, especially competitors, use coffee for its stimulating effect even when they do not normally drink it. The strong athletes the coach knows tend to be dependent on either caffeine or sugar.

Metabolism

Coach’s advice

Coffee may increase metabolism slightly. Several other foods can speed up metabolism more substantially, so coffee is not the only way to get that effect.

Sweetened coffee

Coach’s advice

A coffee drink loaded with honey and sugar can give a short-term boost but can harm the body over the long term. One drink made with five tablespoons of honey and twenty sugar cubes shows how far this can go.

Children and caffeine

Coach’s advice

Caffeine is drug-like, and children should not be made accustomed to it; a child can already be dependent on coffee. Immediate harm may be limited, but coffee is for when a child needs to wake up.

Caution about health claims

Coach’s advice

Claims about coffee should be treated with caution. Cigarettes were once advertised for years as beneficial to health and lungs, and what is believed about coffee may change in the same way.

Coach’s experience

In his own training, the coach does not drink coffee regularly. Before a competition, he drinks a cup about an hour beforehand and feels strongly stimulated.

After about a year without coffee, he tried a cup during a workout and could not sleep that night. He drank light coffee and thought dark coffee would have affected him more.