Extra energy? How coffee affects the effectiveness of your workout

Often you feel so tired before a workout that you want to energize yourself a little with a cup of coffee. But is it the right decision? Let’s find out together with Lyudmila Nikitina – honored master of sports in bodybuilding and highly qualified trainer of performing athletes, participant of the International Festival of Health and Sports SN PRO EXPO FORUM.

Does coffee give you energy before training?

The question of whether coffee is necessary for the training process is quite controversial. Here we also include pre-workout complexes containing caffeine.

Small doses do have positive effects, such as boosting metabolism and improving reaction times. There is even a theory that caffeine can enhance muscle glycogen resynthesis, but this is just a theory. And even if it is, you should use this information carefully and for short periods.

It should be understood that external sources of stimulation cause addiction in addition to the effect of vigor and overmotivation. Yes, they increase efficiency, give strength and endurance, but at what cost?
Caffeine does not give us energy from the outside. It only accumulates at one moment the energy that the body can distribute for the day.

What are the risks of caffeine consumption?

A healthy training process should follow the laws of cycling and periodization. These cycles are based not only on our body type and shape, but even on our own temperament and, most importantly, we alternate them intuitively, feeling our body.

If we do not follow these laws or if we make violations in the form of overtraining (for example, if we failed to evaluate our own strength performance under the adrenaline rush), such mistakes are followed by the usual symptoms that every second person experiences:

• sleep deprivation;
• fatigue, inability to get a grip;
• sluggish depression.

These and other symptoms can cause metabolic and even hormonal failures, if the athlete did not catch up in time and did not change the systems. But, as a rule, the opposite happens. Having felt a decline in strength and not having sorted out his condition, the athlete increases the dosage. A similar story is familiar to office workers, who one portion of coffee a day is not practically never do without, and now we know why.

But our topic is athletes, so let’s get back to them. So, after the effect is over, you are bound to bounce back (unless you drink something stimulating containing caffeine again).

It’s good if you have a chance to relax and rest after your workout. But if the training process was in the evening, the increased adrenaline will either prevent you from falling asleep, or the second option is possible – fatigue will allow you to switch off, but you will not be able to get a good night’s sleep, because the stage of “healthy sleep” will not be reached.

It turns out that the body is in constant stress. It should also be understood that sport is first of all a healthy lifestyle. And such a “nervous soil” is a bad basis for health.

We can assume that professional sports can be an exception, but the sport of higher achievements requires constant progress. And as we have found out, “overtraining” is inevitable. A professional in his business has neither the right nor the opportunity to get stuck in a plateau. No champion can argue with that.