How Coffee Will Help You Run Faster
How does coffee help running?
Runners love their caffeine, whether it’s the early morning pre-run jolt we’re looking for or the pick-me-up after a hard long run to get us through the day at work. Often times we think about caffeine as the 5 dollar miracle that keeps us awake through those long work meetings. But research has come out within the last decade claiming the benefits of caffeine are much larger than we ever thought.
Citing claims about increased athletic performance and even increased fat burning. Does our morning cup of coffee do that much for us? It must be enough for Olympians as 75% of elite endurance athletes tested were found to have caffeine in their system during competition.
Today I want to take a bigger look at the affect caffeine has on our running and if it could be our secret weapon for our next race.
Coffee Before a Run
I’ll use coffee interchangeably here with caffeine as that’s how a majority of us get our fix. But there are plenty of other ways whether it’s tea, gels, or even energy drinks there are plenty of options suited to whatever your stomach is most comfortable with.
You don’t have to be an Olympic Caliber runner to receive the benefits from a pre run coffee. But why does coffee help us run faster? Let’s break this down into a few key categories.
Mental Alertness and Perceived Effort
Increased Ability to Burn Fat
Increased V02 Max
Recovery
What It Means for You
Drinking coffee before runs and before writing training plans
Mental Alertness & Mood
Coffee has long been known for it’s ability to make you more focused and that’s true for the late night work sessions or in a running workout. In a 2012 study participants who were given caffeine before a workout were much more likely to show readiness to complete the workout, boost mental alertness and mood and significantly increase time to exhaustion in the workout. All good things for runners, right?
Caffeine has been found to decrease the perceived effort for a given workout in a 2015 study done on cyclists showed that participants who had ingested caffeine increased their effort by about 6% compared to the placebo. Not only was an increased effort given for biking but the perceived effort was also slightly lower than the placebo.
Increased Ability to Burn Fat
This is especially important for our Marathoners and Ultra Marathoners as during a long run or a Marathon to run our best we have to rely upon more than just our glycogen stored in our cells. Caffeine has been shown to help make us more efficient at burning lipids and to help us run longer.
Coffee ingested one hour before a workout decreased glycogen usage by up 40% on average and burned more lipids instead. There have been plenty of older studies as well that agree with the finds that subjects used less of their own glycogen after ingesting caffeine which can lead to increased time to exhaustion which was prevalent in most of the studies that are linked within this article. If you’re planning on running multiple hours having some caffeine in your system might help fight the bonk!
Being Faster in your Running
In a 2019 double blind study caffeine was found to increase peak Aerobic performance(Also known as as V02 Max) with a higher oxygen saturation of the muscles during exercise. Another study found that there was on average a 4% increased V02 max for those who had ingested caffeine compared to the placebo. The study concluded that each person who ingested caffeine had widely different results of how much benefit was gained from the caffeine.
There is more research needed on exactly why coffee helps you run faster but the evidence is clear. Coffee helps you reach your best.
Can Caffeine Help Me Run Faster?
The answer is simply, yes! We’ve gone into some of the different ways coffee and caffeine can make a difference and as runners there have been multiple studies all over of the scientific effects of caffeine and running. Even to this study that looked at the benefits of drinking coffee before a 5K and it’s performance effect. They found a 1.4% performance boost in 5K times just by having caffeine before the race compared to nothing.
The recommended amount of caffeine was 3-5 MG. for every 2.3 lbs. in body weight. Generally speaking a 12 ounce cup of coffee has just under 150 milligrams of caffeine it, for reference. We highly recommend trying some caffeine pre-workout before a race as jumping straight into a race could be dangerous for your stomach if you’re not used to it! We recommend to start light and increase as you feel comfortable.
Experiment with different techniques and find what you’re comfortable with! Everyone responds differently and there is no one way to do things.
Have more questions about caffeine supplementation that weren’t answered here? Feel free to send me a message at Johnny@wickedbonkproof.com and I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you may have!