Caffeine before a workout

Anyone who’s spent more than 5 minutes with me will probably know how much I enjoy my coffee – I love it! And the caffeine we’re ingesting while enjoying that delicious coffee can even help optimise our exercise performance. 

Prefer to watch than read? Then please check out the video below:

Research on pre-workout caffeine

Check out this umbrella review of 21 published meta-analyses. Essentially, this is a review of studies that reviewed studies, and it states that ‘caffeine ingestion improves exercise performance in a broad range of exercise tasks’ and the ’ergogenic (physical performance-enhancing) effects of caffeine on muscle endurance, muscle strength, anaerobic power and aerobic endurance were substantiated by moderate quality of evidence coming from moderate-to-high quality systematic reviews.’ So, the body of evidence supports caffeine consumption for optimising performance, and naturally, I stand with the research. I don’t think you need to smash back a double espresso before every session, but there are some sessions where you really want that edge! 

Pre-workout supplements

Andy, what do you think about pre-workouts? Yeah, they’re good, and I’ve recommended these when required, but some of these pre-workout supplements have an insane amount of caffeine. I’ve just gone on Amazon, and the first sponsored product I saw, the one right at the top, had 320mg of caffeine per serving! I’m an avid coffee drinker and will have naturally built up a tolerance, but I’d be off my face after taking that – I’d be bouncing off the walls. I’d stick with the double espresso, which is around 150mg, a decent amount, or a pre-workout supplement with a sensible amount of caffeine, such as Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Per-Workout, which contains 175mg. I’d probably still be twitching on this, but at least I won’t be curled up in the corner of the gym wondering why my heart feels like it’s about to explode.

Parting shot

Caffeine is one of a handful of performance-enhancing supplements that are recommended within the evidence-based community, and for good reason – it’s effective!