Caffeine for Workouts: How Much Is Too Much?

To the relief of a great many coffee drinkers and others whose first morning instinct is to reach for a caffeinated beverage to wake themselves up, caffeine was certified as an official performance enhancer several years ago. Studies have shown that caffeine’s benefits in settings of athletic training and physical competition are undeniable.

The problem is that it is important to dial in your caffeine consumption to a level that is actually helpful to your workout. Aside from the feeling of mental alertness, caffeine may not actually be improving your training if you’re taking too little, and there can also be huge consequences to taking too much. So what is the correct amount of caffeine to take when you’re training? 

How does caffeine help your workouts?

The idea that caffeine can benefit your workouts is considered to be a proven fact rather than a thought spawned by a misguided belief in caffeine’s stimulating potential. 

The International Society of Sports Nutrition’s official position is that caffeine boosts muscular endurance, movement velocity, and muscular strength, and enhances sprinting, jumping, and throwing performance, as well as a wide range of aerobic and anaerobic sport-specific actions.

These benefits are owed to caffeine’s role in suppressing adenosine receptors in the central nervous systems, thereby increasing neurotransmitter release. This serves to increase motor unit firing rates, and suppresses pain, while enhancing mood, vigilance, focus, and alertness in most people. 

Beyond that, caffeine also boosts muscle contraction, which causes an increase in the very sort of force-production potential that is useful during sprinting and resistance training.

How much caffeine should you take?

Here is where you might be surprised. While caffeine in relatively low amounts certainly helps alertness, there is no evidence that the amount of caffeine administered through most caffeinated beverages even comes close to a level that meaningfully improves athletic performance.

Specifically, studies have confirmed that the minimal effective dose of caffeine on physical performance is around 2 mg/kg of body mass. Therefore, a 150-pound person (68 kg) would need to consume in the range of 140 mg of caffeine before they should expect to see any tangible physical benefits from its consumption. 

To put this in perspective, almost no volume of energy drinks surpasses this minimum threshold until 16 oz are consumed. Moreover, the recommended range of caffeine consumption for boosting performance is 3-6 mg/kg of body mass. This also means that a 200-pound man would be unlikely to notice an uptick in physical performance until he had imbibed at least two 8 oz cups of coffee at 90 mg each.

How much caffeine is too much?

As often as concerns of mild addiction and jittery tendencies are raised with respect to caffeine, studies indicate that the side-effects of caffeine are often genetically determined, and also heavily dictated by the time of the day when caffeine is consumed. 

Reputable studies have reported low incidence of disturbed sleep when supplemental caffeine is taken in the morning; incidents of athlete sleep disruption increased dramatically when caffeine supplementation occurred in the late afternoon and into the evening. 

Regardless of the timing of caffeine intake, the ISSN notes that doses of caffeine in the realm of 9 mg/kg are associated with a high incidence of side-effects and “do not seem to be required to elicit an ergogenic effect.” Because of this, it is important to ensure that your caffeine intake remains within safe levels. 

More Than a Morning Pick-Me-Up

Caffeine is not only the most common and socially acceptable drug in the world, but it has also proven to be so beneficial to athletic performance that it has graduated to the level of being an accepted supplement. The important thing to remember is that — like any supplement — caffeine needs to be taken in precise amounts in order to be effective. 

You should take the time to calculate your optimal caffeine intake based on your weight, assess your own personal tolerance for it, and then gauge how helpful it is in your workout. If the results of the several studies assessing the contributions of caffeine to athletic performance are any indication, you’ll probably be quite pleased with your results.

Summary:

1. Caffeine is officially recognized as an enhancer of athletic performance.

2. Most servings of caffeine are too small to noticeably improve physical speed or strength.

3. The minimal effective dose of caffeine on your physical prowess is 2 mg/kg of body weight.

4. The recommended range of caffeine consumption for upgrading physical performance is 3-6 mg/kg of body weight.

5. Doses of caffeine at or above 9 mg/kg of body weight seem to produce no further benefits and are accompanied by negative side effects.

6. Most side effects linked with high caffeine consumption seem to be greatly attenuated by taking supplemental doses of caffeine earlier in the day as opposed to late in the afternoon or evening.