caffeine and exercise?

[GrantR]

So since the New Year i've been working on ditching caffeine. Seems to be working just fine. I haven't had a coffee for nearly 2 weeks. Once or twice I've had a green tea.

Now the problem is that during the last 2 weeks, the two times I've tried to do a really hard row on a day where I had zero caffeine I've had a really crappy experience. Last Tuesday's Pete Plan 4x1000k session where the 3rd and 4th 1ks were simply an exercise in slowing down enough to reach the end, and last night when I tried to do a SB 1 hour and had to pretty much HD at 28 minutes for a couple of minutes then finish the hour off at basically a gentle warmup pace. Both rows seemed the same: cardio is keeping up easily, not breathing particularly hard, but my heart rate appears to be running about 10 bpm lower than I would expect and I can't get it to go higher, and my muscles feel like they're simply not clearing lactic acid or something so the muscles completely fatigue out on me by the time I am half way into the workout at the pace that I know I should be able to achieve. In between these two rows, last Friday I did another PP session but had had a green tea earlier in the day and had a really good kick ass session.

I'm wondering if this is an effect anyone here has experience with or heard of? Maybe my body is so used to exercising with caffeine that it doesn't know how to deal with it not being there? Or maybe it's pure coincidence that I've had two of my worst days of rowing that I can think of on the 2 days I've tried a hard row without caffeine?

[Paul Victory]

I don't much about the long term effects of caffeine, but there seems to be a general consensus that too much caffeine is bad for you. If you were taking too much caffeine previously, is it possible that you are now suffering withdrawal symptoms and that your energy levels are negatively affected in the short term. If so, this may be a case of short term pain for long term gain.

Then again, I could just be talking through my hat.

Paul V

[GrantR]

It's not that - I never had much coffee before. I used to only have 3 cups a day max. I know plenty of people who have 2-3 times that! I'm well past the caffeine withdrawal phase, I know those headaches pretty well

This web page says there actually is a performance benefit from caffeine. And curiously enough they report the gain over a 5km run works out to be about ~1.1%, which works out to be about 1.0 to 1.5 seconds of pace. That's what I saw as my loss in expected pace in last week's PP session, and could explain my 1 hour fail last night, if I was actually going out up to 1.5 seconds of pace too fast.

http://runnersconnect.net/running-nutri ... d-running/

but it also seems to indicate you don't need much caffeine. eg: me just taking a green tea on a day I know I want to do a hard workout, like last Friday's PP session, is sufficient. Don't need caffeine for just doing a long medium effort type row.

I'll have to try a hard row on a caffeine free day where I deliberately aim 1.5 seconds slower than I would expect to see how that compares.

[Rodger]

I don't know about the effects of caffeine on exercise, but I would think that other variables are much more important than drinking two or three cups of coffee or tea. For instance, I tend to get the fatigueness in the muscles you describe the day after a tough workout (such as the PP long intervals). So I have to use a hard day/recovery day alteration if I don't want to get terribly frustrated. Could it be you did those two bad workouts after not having completely recovered from the previous workout?

[GrantR]

both days in question I'd actually had 2 days of rest prior. I know the next-day thing plenty well from 10+ years of on/off gym/rowing binges, it's not that

Another page that seems to confirm that caffeine helps exercise. Seems like most olypmic atheletes are on to the trick!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/1 ... blogs&_r=0

so that does seem to indicate that maybe I'm not imagining things!

[strider77]

Grant I don't think 3 or 4 cups of coffee do any harm, in fact the Caffeine in coffee helps stave off Alzheimers and Parkinson's and aids athletic performance.

Some people are allergic to it and can get palpitations and if you are one of them then stop.

Also its a myth that diuretic caffeinated beverages are dehydrating, Caffeine is a diuretic, but the fluids in coffee and tea more than replace any fluids that you lose due to the diuretic effect.

Also if you have heart problems or high blood pressure its not a good idea but for most people I think the benefits outweigh any negative effects in my opinion.

[GrantR]

I'm moving off coffee because it helps my mind stay more evenly focused all day, with coffee it's more up and down. Green tea seems to work more evenly than coffee for me, apparently it's a slightly different kind of caffeine. So I don't need to ditch caffeine entirely!

[Phil Lamb]

Grant, how are you doing now? Are you still experiencing the lower heart rates?

[GrantR]

I think part of it was being a teeny bit under the weather for a couple of weeks, but also my resting HR is dropping too so that's lowering my top end a little bit as well, in conjuction with the caffeine avoidance. I just make sure to have a green tea a few hours before I do any kind of power rowing and I'm good now.