To get things rolling, let’s start with two different examples of why coffee might well be able to bring about a change in performance. The first is from the experience of an Olympic athlete and the second from the position of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
First, the athlete:
Shortly after she won her first Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021, Sifan Hassan said this: “If it weren’t for coffee, I would never be an Olympic champion.” Hassan had just completed a busy day, having qualified from her 1500m heat in the morning and then having won later on the same day the Olympic 5,000m race. Hassan was convinced that the caffeine in her system had boosted her energy levels and propelled her to victory. Was it a real increase in energy, or was it just a perception of greater energy or even less effort being required to achieve her feat? Whatever it was, it was hard to argue that coffee had not helped her perform better.
And second, WADA:
For twenty years from 1984 to 2004 caffeine was considered a banned substance in sport by the medical commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other anti-doping authorities. However, in 2004 WADA changed their stance on this and put caffeine onto their ‘monitoring list’ meaning that they have since been monitoring the situation in case it becomes an anti-doping issue in the future. The IOC allows its athletes up to 12 micrograms per millilitre of urine before the substance is considered illegal.
Taking together the experience of the Olympic 5,000 metres champion Hassan and the policy of WADA there might already be good reason for believing that coffee can aid performance.
This belief is reinforced by a multitude of scientific studies over several years showing that caffeine can indeed aid performance. In a paper written in 2021 the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) concluded that:
- Supplementation with caffeine has been shown to acutely enhance various aspects of exercise performance in many but not all studies. Small to moderate benefits of caffeine use include, but are not limited to: muscular endurance, movement velocity and muscular strength, sprinting, jumping, and throwing performance, as well as a wide range of aerobic and anaerobic sport-specific actions.
- Aerobic endurance appears to be the form of exercise with the most consistent moderate-to-large benefits from caffeine use, although the magnitude of its effects differs between individuals.
What this and many other studies have shown is that the beneficial effects of caffeine are actually quite varied, from activating areas of your nervous system to improve focus, to stimulating the breakdown of fat, and to the raising of body temperature to help burn more calories. Caffeine can also increase the circulation of epinephrine, the hormone responsible for the “fight or flight” response, which also contributes to improved performance.
So there appear to be an army of reasons why caffeine could be good for you in your search for a few new PBs!
But before we get too carried away by this, we should also offer the findings of a randomised controlled trial which suggested that genetic differences might also affect how caffeine is metabolised, which in turn might determine the extent to which caffeine improves endurance performance in any one individual. So before you grab a cup of coffee ahead of your next race in the hope that it will make you run faster, bear in mind that the benefits might not be the same for everyone!
So exactly how much coffee might be good for you and when should it be consumed?
The ISSN recommends 3-6mg of caffeine per kg of bodyweight, 30-90 minutes prior to exercise to ‘improve endurance exercise capacity’. For the average 70kg person, that would be from 210mg to 420mg, the approximate equivalent of 3 to 6 espressos. The ISSN adds: “very high doses of caffeine (e.g. 9 mg/kg) are associated with a high incidence of side-effects and do not seem to be required to elicit an ergogenic effect.”
If you’re hoping that caffeine can provide that extra marginal gain, we recommend that you experiment within the 3-6mg range. And remember that there are many variables to account for and it wouldn’t be sensible to expect that your best result will come on your first attempt. It’s also good not to try out a large quantity of coffee for the first time on the day of a big event!
And what about the risks of ingesting too much coffee? It’s good to be aware of possible side effects of consuming too much caffeine which include insomnia, hyperactivity, anxiety, nausea and lack of appetite, headaches and dizziness. It is possible to take on board too much caffeine which can also lead to irritability and mood problems, not to mention problems with sleeping. Also, severe caffeine toxicity can lead to cardiac arrest and requires urgent medical care.
Our conclusion: consuming coffee can help you perform better and improve your PB, but the way you take coffee before and during exercise (if you do this in the form of energy gels) should be done sensibly within recommended limits and tested thoroughly so as to maximise these benefits.
