Fun and Fitness for the 40-Something

Have you ever seen someone who has obviously been exercising walk out of a Starbucks with a big ole coffee drink of some kind? Maybe you are one of those people. It’s always struck me as an odd choice, but it turns out that caffeine fix might help you recover from your workouts more quickly.

According to a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology, consuming “large amounts of caffeine with carbohydrate” expedites post-exercise muscle recovery by accelerating the re-fueling of the muscles with glycogen. The effect of caffeine was dramatic: The athletes in the study had 66 percent more glycogen in their muscles four hours after finishing intense, glycogen-depleting exercise, compared to when they consumed carbohydrate alone.

“If you have 66% more fuel for the next day’s training or competition, there is absolutely no question you will go farther or faster,” the study’s senior author said.

The study was conducted on seven endurance cyclists. They first rode a cycle ergometer until exhaustion and ate a low-carbohydrate dinner to reduce muscle glycogen stores prior to the experimental trial the next day. The athletes did not eat again until they returned to the lab the next day. They again cycled to exhaustion. The athletes then drank a drink containing carbohydrate alone or carbohydrate plus caffeine (the equivalent of 5-6 cups of strong coffee) and rested for four hours while the researchers took several muscle biopsies and multiple blood samples.  Future studies will likely look at lower doses of caffeine.

So maybe it makes some sense to hit Starbucks after a workout. Of course, there’s still the issue of the calories in some of those coffee drinks. 380 calories for a caramel frappuccino? Yikes!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 7:54 am and is filed under General Fitness, News, Running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.