It's no secret in the fitness industry that caffeine enhances your performance, from marathon running to short HIIT workouts. Caffeine comes in many forms and many supplement manufacturers add it into several of their supplements to promote weight-loss/fat-loss products.
The idea of a Thermogenic tablet or Caffeine tablet is to increase metabolism and boost energy production needed to improve your performance or workout, making you train harder and essentially burning more calories leading to potential weight loss, obviously you must still be in a caloric deficit for the weight to shift! I am a coffee lover and that's why I have spent quite some time reading papers and researching, I've read many great studies based around athletes and caffeine consumption or caffeine intake and performance, as a Personal Trainer with a rugby background I have selfishly chosen this one as it relates to caffeine ingestion with a well-trained amateur rugby union team. The results from this study were very interesting (to me anyway), it shows how caffeine ingestion with conditioned athletes showed a 10% passing accuracy improvement under high-pressure conditions using a 6mg/kg formula and just as importantly, how sprint times at the beginning and end of a session were maintained with the supplementation of caffeine. As a team sport, rugby involves a prolonged duration of exertion with intermittent high-intensity bursts making it a great example of caffeine effects for high-intensity exercise and prolonged aerobic exercise. (page 8-9.) These studies put together here give you all the answers you need to know about caffeine intake. http://www.jissn.com/content/pdf/1550-2783-7-5.pdf "Caffeine conditioned subjects were able to maintain sprint times at the end of the circuit, relative to the beginning of the protocol" Stuart et al. (33) page 9. There is of course a downside to caffeine ingestion and it is very straightforward. Most people tend to use caffeine (coffee) to get a quick jolt in the morning and take several poor quality cups during the day to take them out of energy dips, by doing so you are abusing the substance and its benefits. Coffee, as a substance, should not be abused like this. The studies above were all related to performance and exercise, an exact measurement was taken with each athlete. The main problem with caffeine is that you can build up a tolerance, the best way to get out of the caffeine tolerance is to cycle your caffeine intake. This can be 3 days with caffeine/2 without etc. If you cannot go without your coffee for a few days you really need to reevaluate your diet and where you are lacking in your energy consumption. The next main factor would be the quality of caffeine that you consume, if you only consume high quality sources of caffeine (coffee), you will be less likely to overindulge on it, and if you consume high quality caffeine before you workout/team sport exercise, you will be directly benefitting from the caffeine ingestion during your high-intensity or aerobic endurance exercise. Last but certainly not least, the type of coffee you are having! If you can't understand why you are struggling with fat loss or even weight loss but are drinking 2-3 latte's per day, that is close to 200 liquid calories of garbage per serving that doesn't fill you up, then you need to have a smarter approach. Cut it out and switch to a high-quality Americano or Espresso and reduce the fat and calories whilst benefitting from the caffeine. Here is the starbucks breakdown of a Latte, I would like to highlight the 22% RDA of saturated fat also!! http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/espresso/caffe-latte#size=42&milk=63 Always willing to give advice and tips so get in touch if you would like any more info or help reaching your goals. Gary Robb PT
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