Interesting article on coffee’s health benefits. Pay particular attention to point 6.
We’re used to thinking of caffeine as a pre-workout stim, but apparently it can be used to boost post workout recovery. Has anyone heard of this research?
Don’t see why it would increase uptake of carbs post workout. i would have thought it would spread out the absorption because of the “flight or fight” response shifting blood out of the digestion and into the muscles. On the other hand, maybe that’s exactly the mechanism if the simple carb goes in right away and is THEN transported to the muscles by the caffeine response
Is this like how Biotest Power Drive enhances CNS recovery? :rolleyes:
I can see it now…new t-nation post workout supplement:
[COLOR=“Red”]RecoveryBOL[/COLOR]
Ingredients:
tyrosine 5g
phosphatidylcholine 2g
dmae 500mg
Instructions: Take immediately post workout. Mix with 6 strong cups of coffee. Take daily for best results.
Anyone have Clemson’s #? This will be a money machine.
Here’s the abstract and link for the study in the Journal of Applied Physiology:
High rates of muscle glycogen resynthesis after exhaustive exercise when carbohydrate is coingested with caffeine
David J. Pedersen, Sarah J. Lessard, Vernon G. Coffey, Emmanuel G. Churchley, Andrew M. Wootton, They Ng, Matthew J. Watt, and John A. HawleySchool of Medical Sciences, RMIT University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
Submitted 18 October 2007 ; accepted in final form 30 April 2008
We determined the effect of coingestion of caffeine (Caff) with carbohydrate (CHO) on rates of muscle glycogen resynthesis during recovery from exhaustive exercise in seven trained subjects who completed two experimental trials in a randomized, double-blind crossover design. The evening before an experiment subjects performed intermittent exhaustive cycling and then consumed a low-CHO meal. The next morning subjects rode until volitional fatigue. On completion of this ride subjects consumed either CHO [4 g/kg body mass (BM)] or the same amount of CHO + Caff (8 mg/kg BM) during 4 h of passive recovery. Muscle biopsies and blood samples were taken at regular intervals throughout recovery. Muscle glycogen levels were similar at exhaustion [~75 mmol/kg dry wt (dw)] and increased by a similar amount (~80%) after 1 h of recovery (133 ± 37.8 vs. 149 ± 48 mmol/kg dw for CHO and Caff, respectively). After 4 h of recovery Caff resulted in higher glycogen accumulation (313 ± 69 vs. 234 ± 50 mmol/kg dw, P < 0.001). Accordingly, the overall rate of resynthesis for the 4-h recovery period was 66% higher in Caff compared with CHO (57.7 ± 18.5 vs. 38.0 ± 7.7 mmol·kg dw–1·h–1, P < 0.05). After 1 h of recovery plasma Caff levels had increased to 31 ± 11 µM (P < 0.001) and at the end of the recovery reached 77 ± 11 µM (P < 0.001) with Caff. Phosphorylation of CaMKThr286 was similar after exercise and after 1 h of recovery, but after 4 h CaMKThr286 phosphorylation was higher in Caff than CHO (P < 0.05). Phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK)Thr172 and AktSer473 was similar for both treatments at all time points. We provide the first evidence that in trained subjects coingestion of large amounts of Caff (8 mg/kg BM) with CHO has an additive effect on rates of postexercise muscle glycogen accumulation compared with consumption of CHO alone.
http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/105/1/7?
Notice that if you happen to be Asafa-sized (I am), 8mg/kg caffeine turns into ~700 mg of caffeine…which is an awful lot of coffee to be drinking post-workout!
For athletes that train later in the day or early evenings that much caffeine will undoubtedly screw up their sleep patterns, which I imagine would more than cancel out any marginal recovery benefit from the caffeine.
Yeah, that’s the point. I’ve read in the past that it takes 5 hours to get the effects of caffeine out of your system.
I also wonder if the uptake of carbs is actually the limiting factor for sprinters. It’s not like we’re running down our glycogen storage to nothing off 1500m of HI work per week, but protein for rebuilding microtears and recovery for the CNS are maybe different matters.
Exactly! The better be a morning deal!
Since caffeine has a fairly long half life (~6 hrs) you could just take it pre-workout. It might be something to keep in mind from a body composition perspective as the likely mechanism of action is the caffeine is making fat cells insulin resistant and since the carbs can’t go there, more of them get sent to the muscle.
However, there is also research demonstrating less glucose recovery with caffeine so it’s hard to say exactly what the heck is going on. This might be something that only occurs with high doses of caffeine in non-habitual users.
Interesting nonetheless.