Bodybuilding Supplements: The Facts on Caffeine, Part I

Someone once said “there’s no sunshine without coffee.” I tend to agree. However, there’s a great deal more to understand regarding the benefits of caffeine – the central nervous system stimulant most people associate with coffee – and its effects on mental acuity, and bodybuilding performance, etc. In this two-part article I’m going to cover what people really need to know about this topic, and suggest a way to get the most bang for your money when it comes to this highly popular beverage and supplement.

Caffeine, The Basics…

Caffeine – a compound in the methylxanthine family – has its effects through various mechanisms on the central nervous system, and to be honest, I doubt those mechanisms are of great interest to most readers, so I won’t bother with an extensive discussion on it here. Suffice to say, caffeine positively impacts memory, performance, endurance, coordination and increases arousal, vigilance, while reducing fatigue, to name a few effects. Anyone who has used straight caffeine knows the stuff works, which is why the military, for example, adds it to gum as well as other things like bars and such. We all know the “energy drink/shot” category is all the rage these days even outside the gym setting. Although caffeine is not for everyone to be sure, it’s amazingly non-toxic. OK, so bodybuilders who are users of caffeine either know all this, or have at least experienced it, and don’t need much convincing it’s effective stuff for its intended uses (like for pre-workout, for example). Let’s move into the more interesting info of this article, shall we?

Coffee Vs. Caffeine

Here’s where things get interesting, at least to science nerds like me. Most people think of coffee and caffeine as essentially interchangeable terms with the same effects. However, caffeine and coffee have very different effects and when we discuss the various positive effects of caffeine on performance or mental acuity, we are in fact talking about straight caffeine vs. coffee. That reality often comes as a surprise to many, but it’s true. Caffeine and coffee have different effects and it’s straight caffeine that has the pronounced effects on bodybuilding workout performance, mental acuity, and others briefly outlined above.

Studies have been carried out that used coffee matched for caffeine content vs. pure caffeine, and find it’s the straight caffeine that has the major impact on what we all generally associate with caffeine. Probably the most extensive study that compares coffee to caffeine was entitled Metabolic and exercise endurance effects of coffee and caffeine ingestion (1). This study found in a nutshell:

“…This study was designed to compare the metabolic and exercise endurance responses to the ingestion of the same amounts of caffeine as a coffee beverage and as pure caffeine with water. The caffeine was consumed in the same volume of coffee or water in the same period of time. It resulted in very similar plasma concentrations of plasma methylxanthines [meaning the caffeine appeared to be absorbed equally from the different sources], but only when it was consumed independent of coffee was there an enhancement of endurance. In addition, in this trial the initial impact on circulating epinephrine [adrenaline] concentration was greatest. Thus it appears that some component(s) in coffee interferes with the normal ergogenic response of caffeine.”

So for the non-science readers, what does the above mean? Essentially, coffee matched for caffeine content to caffeine capsules failed to have the same effects on adrenaline response (feeling “jacked up”) and endurance as straight caffeine. “Why is that, Will?!” is the obvious thought you have! No, I’m not a mind reader, just the obvious question.

Coffee is a complex biological substance with literally hundreds of compounds that are dissolved along with caffeine during the brewing process, all of which ends up in your coffee mug. Some of these compounds have effects completely separate from caffeine, and more important to this article, effects that appear to counteract the effects of caffeine. Besides the more obvious stuff found in coffee (e.g., lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins) you find compounds of potential metabolic importance, such as nicotinic acid, opiate-receptor antagonists, and cholinomimetics (agents that exert an effect “opposite” to adrenaline). Interestingly one group of researchers isolated a cholinomimetic compound from both regular and decaffeinated coffees that, when injected into rats, resulted in decreases in heart rate and blood pressure. Thus, a compound that has direct counter regulatory effects to that of caffeine (and adrenaline).

Additional support for that is the fact these researchers also added pure caffeine to decaf coffee matched for dose to straight caffeine, and the effects were still inferior to caffeine alone on performance as well as other effects one usually associates to coffee vs. caffeine. According to the researchers from the above paper, “One possibility to account for this difference is that one or more of the multitude of compounds in coffee beverages antagonize the actions of caffeine, resulting in a reduced response.”

We know what the caffeine antagonist is in tea (from Camellia sinensis—the leaves that make white, green, oolong, and black teas). It is called L-theanine and you can buy it as a stand alone dietary supplement, and it’s also in some “relaxing” drinks and supplements. L-theanine combined with caffeine reduces both the blood pressure elevation and the alertness boosting effects of caffeine alone (2).

In Part II of this article, we will finish our discussion and we talk about energy drinks as well as cheap ways to consume caffeine.

Go to Bodybuilding Supplements: The Facts on Caffeine, Part II

References

(1) Graham TE, et al. Metabolic and exercise endurance effects of coffee and caffeine ingestion. J Appl Physiol 1998;85:883-9.

(2) Rogers PJ, et al. Time for tea: mood, blood pressure and cognitive performance effects of caffeine and theanine administered alone and together. Psychopharmacology 2008;195:569–77.