How Coffee Affects Exercise Performance and Recovery: A Focus on Endurance Athletes

Are you a regular coffee drinker and a frequent exerciser? Do you constantly wonder if you should be drinking coffee before working out but can’t resist the morning cup? You’re not alone! As a fellow coffee drinker who starts the day off with a hot cuppa, I’m here to tell you about the pros of coffee (in moderation), especially as it relates to exercise performance and recovery post-exercise. So, grab your cup of joe and read along!

Did you know?

1. Coffee plays an important role in endurance sports as caffeine can improve performance by reducing perceptions of effort, fatigue, or pain when consumed before training.
2. Caffeine increases post-exercise muscle glycogen resynthesis and the glycemic and insulinemic response during a 4-hour recovery period after an exhaustive exercise session. This means that drinking caffeine in your coffee speeds up the processes of recovery in your muscles in terms of blood sugar levels after your workout and returns your body to its normal state quicker.
3. When consumed with sweetened milk to provide the adequate carbohydrates to meet an athlete’s needs, coffee + carbs is an effective strategy to improve muscle glycogen recovery for athletes with short periods of time for recovery or competitions with multiple and sequential (one after another) bouts of exercise.

Most endurance athletes reduce their glycogen stores (the body’s main source of energy) after training, which typically slows their recovery. But coffee and sweetened milk, which contains carbohydrates and proteins of high digestibility and biological value (meaning they are easily absorbed and used in the body), are accessible ingredients that an athlete can consume to improve their recovery and perform better in later training.

What else can coffee do?

1. While coffee does not improve maximal oxygen capacity directly, it could allow the athlete to train at a greater power output for longer! Essentially, while the overall amount of oxygen your blood can absorb does not increase, you can utilize the oxygen available better, more efficiently, and for longer.
2. Caffeine in coffee also affects your hormones. It increases the hormone responsible for the body’s “fight-or-flight” response, epinephrine–(also known as adrenaline), which can increase performance.
3. In post-exercise recovery, caffeine helps increase feelings of wellness and promote euphoria so you feel that “high” after working out by lowering the threshold for exercise-induced beta-endorphin (pain-reducing hormone) release.

Here’s the good news: There is no evidence to suggest that caffeine ingestion before exercise leads to dehydration, ion imbalance, or any other negative effects.

How does coffee do this?

Caffeine in coffee is a powerful stimulant that increases the activity of the central nervous system and can increase mental alertness and attentional performance, peaking 30 to 60+ minutes after consumption with effects lasting up to 4 hours depending on how quickly it is absorbed and processed by the body. The effects can also include an increase in breathing and heart rate, which gets you pumping with physical energy! And here’s the kicker: Just one dose of caffeine can already significantly improve exercise performance and recovery.

But how much is too much coffee?

Everyone tolerates caffeine differently, but the general recommendation is to have between 3-6 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight an hour before working out. Very high doses such as 9 mg per kg of body weight can be associated with unpleasant side effects such as digestive problems and disturbances in your sleep at night with no additional performance benefits.

Summary

Drinking coffee before and/or after a workout has various positive effects on exercise performance and recovery such as: a temporary heightened sense of focus and attention, reducing tiredness, as well as increasing post-exercise muscle glycogen (blood sugar) resynthesis. This is especially beneficial to endurance athletes training in multiple or sequential bouts of exercise. The effects and benefits of caffeine are varied as it depends on the individual’s genetics, training, and other factors such as habitual intake and consumed amount.

References

Graham T. E. (2001). Caffeine and exercise: Metabolism, endurance and performance. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 31(11), 785–807. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200131110-00002

Gold, B. (2023). Is it better to drink coffee before or after your workout? RealSimple. https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/popular-ingredients/coffee-exercise#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20registered%20dietitian,(Sigh%20of%20relief.)

Loureiro, L. M. R., Dos Santos Neto, E., Molina, G. E., Amato, A. A., Arruda, S. F., Reis, C. E. G., & da Costa, T. H. M. (2021). Coffee increases post-exercise muscle glycogen recovery in endurance athletes: A randomized clinical trial. Nutrients, 13(10), 3335. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13103335

Mawer, R. (2021). How caffeine improves exercise performance. Healthline.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/caffeine-and-exercise#basics