Performance Q&AThe big cycling questions answered by our team of expert coaches, nutritionists and riders
01 WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF CAFFEINE USE?
Numerous studies on caffeine reveal that you can ride faster, corner better and ascend like an angel, though not all of you will benefit from a drug so proven that it was banned at high doses from Olympic events between 1984 and 2004.
“A key effect is that it reduces your perception of effort and pain, while boosting your ‘behavioural activation’,” says Gabriel Barreto of the University of São Paulo who’s an expert on coffee. “This is your determination, your willpower, to dig deep.”
This easing of pain relief is proven. Look in your medicine cabinet, dig out the painkillers and there’s a good chance they contain caffeine. Through a sporting lens, caffeine’s also been shown to improve stamina, strength, speed and agility, plus crank up fat oxidation rates. And it’s not all about brawn. The brain benefits, too, as caffeine’s linked to improved cognitive function, specifically reaction time and memory.
Caffeine delivers its performance boost by acting rapidly on the central nervous system, exerting its influence on a quartet of physiological mechanisms: the cardiovascular system, including elevating heart rate and blood pressure; the endocrine system, accelerating glycogenolysis, which is the breakdown of glycogen into glucose for energy purposes; the muscular system – as an example, greater release of calcium for more force; and the central nervous system itself for the pain relief mentioned and fatigue management.
Do you have the right DNA to benefit?
Caffeine’s one of the most tested drugs in the world, so many of these benefits enjoy a weight of evidence behind them. Which makes it even more galling that Barreto’s recent review suggests how much of a kick, or not, you receive is down to your DNA.
“Genes are like ‘cooking recipes’ that we keep inside our cells,” he says. “Sometimes, there are small differences in those recipes from person to person, which may result in differences in how we function. In our study, we were looking at a ‘recipe’ (gene) called CYP1A2, which produces an enzyme that breaks caffeine down so it’s easier for our body to get rid of it. One of the variations in this gene results in some individuals metabolising caffeine slower than others, and we found that there’s an actual impact on how caffeine affects those slow metabolisers. It seems that these slow me
