How to get good at the gym with the right coffee and tea

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Coffee is one of the most popular soft drinks in Russia. It is appreciated not only for its taste, but also as a stimulant of the nervous system of moderate action. We have found out how drinking a cup of fresh tea or coffee on time can improve athletic performance.

Caffeine is one of the most common stimulants in the world. Analyzes of professional athletes show that more than 75% of competitive athletes use caffeinated preparations before and during tournaments.

Caffeine primarily acts on the central nervous system, increasing anxiety and reducing muscle fatigue, which allows you to work longer and more productively.

Athletes note that the use of caffeine:

• body endurance by 3, 3–17% of the usual indicators;
• increases by 20%;
• increases performance for sprinters by 6.5%, and for weightlifters by 9.5%.

Like any stimulant, caffeine has overdose side effects. These include:

• poorly expressed diuretic effect;
• the occurrence of addiction (with prolonged use of more than 200 mg per day);
• sleep disorder;
• the emergence of a sense of anxiety and apathy.

Most Popular Sources of Caffeine

Coffee

Instant coffee can contain from 60 to 180 mg of caffeine per 170 ml of beverage, depending on the brand and manufacturer. Fresh espresso contains up to 80 mg of caffeine per 50 ml.

Many professional athletes drink regular coffee before training. In addition to caffeine, it also contains antioxidants that can slow down oxidative processes in muscles during exercise.

Green and black tea

150 ml of fresh green tea contains 40 to 80 mg of caffeine, depending on the variety. Green tea has a stimulating effect, and can also be drunk before fat burning workouts as a light catalyst for the lipolysis process. Thanks to epigallocatechin gallate, this process will be slightly faster than usual.

Tableted caffeine

Perhaps the most effective remedy from the entire list: in one tablet or capsule, the concentration of caffeine can reach 100-200 mg. This is the most affordable way to get the required dose of caffeine, but an untrained body will have too much of it, so you need to be very careful when starting to use such a stimulant before training, given the impending load on the blood vessels.

Energy

250 ml of energy drink can contain up to 120 mg of caffeine. Despite the relative cheapness from a consumer point of view, the use of store-bought energy drinks in sports is not recommended for a number of reasons: the presence of carbon dioxide, a large amount of sugar, and questionable combinations of tonic substances such as taurine, caffeine and guarana.

Dark chocolate

The most “unsportsmanlike” way to get caffeine is through the alimentary way. In one 100 g chocolate bar, the tonic content can reach 60 g, but, as a rule, you will receive a portion of the stimulant with a lot of sugar - look for chocolate with a minimum content of the latter.

Pre-workout supplements

A single dose of a good pre-workout routine can contain up to 300 mg of caffeine, as well as several other, often more potent, tonic substances. Creatine, beta-alanine, arginine, citrulline and other amino acids are also added there. Only those athletes who have exhausted the effect of other alimentary stimulants should think about purchasing such supplements.

We should also pay attention to the fact that in case of diseases of blood vessels, heart, nervous system and hypertension energetics are contraindicated.

How to use

Meeting someone who doesn't drink coffee and doesn't know their caffeine dosage can be tough. However, if you have done without regular use of this stimulant, but intend to use it to improve athletic performance, start small: 0.3 mg per 1 kg of body weight … The less often you consume caffeine, the lower the dosage will allow you to feel its effects.

Doctors do not recommend exceeding a dosage of 3 mg per 1 kg of body weight. If the amount of caffeine in the blood reaches 6 mg per 1 kg of body weight, it will have the opposite effect, depressing the nervous system and leading to the production of large amounts of cortisol.

It can take up to six hours for caffeine to be utilized from the body, so if you're exercising in the evening, don't risk using a high dosage of caffeine before your workout to avoid disturbing your sleep patterns.