Coffee, together with tea, are the most consumed drinks after water. But what are these drinks made of? What makes them particularly interesting?
Caffeine is a substance belonging to the xanthine family and probably one of the best known substances from a sporting point of view, given its widespread use by competitive athletes.
Effects and use of caffeine in sports
The use of caffeine in the world of sport has been known for several decades. In endurance sports, this substance is used to reduce the feeling of fatigue , produce an improvement in performance and delay the feeling of muscle exhaustion . Precisely by virtue of these characteristics, caffeine, defined as an ergogenic substance, would seem suitable to be taken shortly before prolonged effort, as was proven in a 1979 study.
n a recent study, caffeine appears to have positive effects on post-exercise muscle glycogen synthesis when taken alongside carbohydrates. An increase of approximately 60% in the percentage of muscle glycogen synthesis has been demonstrated in the 4 hours of recovery after training by taking 2 mg/kg/h of caffeine with 1.0 g/kg/h of carbohydrates. Furthermore, it acts both on nervous system and at a metabolic level .
Precisely for this reason, caffeine supplementation may not always be the most appropriate choice, despite its positive effects on performance. As with many supplements, the effectiveness of caffeine also depends on multiple factors such as the subject’s level of training, his body structure and the degree of tolerability to the substance.
Although the effects of caffeine are mainly stimulating and therefore positive for increasing sporting performance, we cannot ignore its diuretic effect , especially in those subjects who, carrying out competitions lasting even several hours, could more quickly become dehydrated. However, there appears to be no dose/response curve regarding benefits. That is, for caffeine the rule of “the more I take, the better” does not apply .
Rooibos: Slimming South African red tea
Where do we find caffeine other than in coffee and tea beans?
We find it in tea leaves , chocolate , cocoa , mate , guarana , kola nuts (this also explains its presence in the well-known American soft drink), in many carbonated soft drinks and in some drugs that do not require a medical prescription. Caffeine is also contained in the leaves, seeds or fruits of 63 species of plants .
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