Do You Know How Much Caffeine Is In Your Cup Of Coffee?

If you are like me and you really love your coffee then this post is one for you. Please enjoy it whilst ingesting your coffee. NOTE: This isn’t an extensive review of caffeine, however going into more detail on one of my latest Instagram posts (view it here) about the variousness of the caffeine content found in coffee, when using it as a pre-workout / game strategy. (I will go into more detail in a future post about the wonderful properties of caffeine and coffee).

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I'm sure most of you reading this will be well aware of the performance enhancing effects that caffeine can provide. ⁣⁣This is why caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) is one of the most popular drugs that is highly accessible and socially acceptable around the world (Sökmen et al., 2008) and consumed daily by ~90% of adults (Burke, 2008). As caffeine is commonly found in various forms of foods and drinks (Kersick et al., 2018) this makes coffee readily-available and simple to administer for us to get our caffeine hit.

Given, that coffee is the most widely used method that most of us around the world consume our caffeine (Guimarães-Ferreira et al., 2017). However, it’s effects on performance are currently misrepresented and creates a gap in the current literature. (This is why I decided to research and performed my undergraduate project on this topic).


It is well established that caffeine is one of the most commonly used supplements by professional and recreational athletes (Astorino and Roberson, 2010) for it’s ergogenic effects on:

  • Muscular Endurance

  • Muscular Strength

  • Anaerobic Power

  • Aerobic Endurance

  • Cognitive Function

    ⁣⁣

So what challenges do you face if you’re looking to consume coffee as your form of pre-workout or pre-game strategy? Well, as the 'Average' cup of coffee contains ~100mg of caffeine (Desbrow et al., 2007), but as you will read below, what constitutes 'average' varies greatly from cup to cup. So how do you know exactly how much caffeine you’re consuming?


The Caffeine Content From Coffee Depends Upon Many Factors:

  • Bean Type

  • Preparation Method

  • Difference in Coffee Bands

  • Growing Environment

  • Climate Conditions

  • Amount of Water Used

  • Effects of Commercial Processing & Storage


You get the picture, there are a plethora of factors that can impact your caffeine fix and the amount of caffeine that you will actually receive when you are sipping on your next cup of coffee.



The extent of caffeine variance observed when you purchase a commercial coffee is very large ~25-214mg/serving (Desbrow et al., 2007) .⁣ So, keep that in mind, when you're next stopping off at your favourite coffee shop (Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Caffè Nero etc.) on the way to training or your next game.⁣⁣ ⁣⁣

Cool Beans (Excuse The Pun) But What Does That Actually Mean?

⁣⁣⁣⁣Well, if you're seeking out the ergogenic properties of caffeine from your cup of coffee, then you could either be selling yourself short by not consuming enough caffeine to elicit any performance enhancing effects. Or on the flip side, you could be caffeinating yourself up wayyyy too much, leading to increased levels of anxiety, sleeplessness and negatively impacting your performance from excessive caffeine consumption. Thus, creating an ergolytic (Negative) effect to your performance from the coffee that you’ve consumed.


However, I'm still a fan of drinking coffee before training, predominantly because I just love the taste. Also, I think I am becoming more 'Swedishized' (Not sure that is real word, but it sounds cool).⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ However, when it comes to game day, I usually consume caffeine anhydrous (highly concentrated caffeine powder) for my pre-game/event strategy. As the caffeine content is more reliable (usually ~200mg) so I know exactly how much caffeine I am actually consuming, in order to hit that magical number ~3-6mg/kg/BW.



Personally, I prefer to consume coffee rather than pre-workouts and especially over Energy Drinks as i'm simply just not a fan of them for their proprietary blend contents found in them (That is for a whole other future blog post).



So, If you're still reading down to here then I thank you. You too must be a massive coffee lover, just like myself.⁣ I wrote this post to give you a little bit of information in order to increase your awareness the next time you're sipping on your cup of coffee before your next big workout or game.

Photo by Zarak Khan on Unsplash

Photo by Zarak Khan on Unsplash

I hope you’ve found this post insightful, as I really do love to geek out writing and researching anything and everything to do with caffeine and coffee. Please like, comment and share this post on to anyone that you think may benefit from it, or simply another coffee lover.

Stay tuned for future posts about all things caffeine and coffee.



References:

  • Astorino, T. and Roberson, D. (2010) 'Efficacy of acute caffeine ingestion for short-term high-intensity exercise performance: a systematic review'. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24(1) pp. 257-265. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181c1f88a

  • Burke, L. (2008) 'Caffeine and sports performance'. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 33(6) pp. 1319-1334.

    DOI: 10.1139/H08-130

  • Desbrow, B., Hughes, R., Leveritt, M. and Scheelings, P. (2007) 'An examination of consumer exposure to caffeine from retail coffee outlets'. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 45(9) pp. 1588-1592. DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2007.02.020

  • Guimarães-Ferreira, L., Trexler, E., Jaffe, D. and Cholewa, J. (2017) 'Role of Caffeine in Sports Nutrition'. In Bagchi, D. (ed.) Sustained Energy for Enhanced Human Functions and Activity, San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 299-319.

  • Kerksick, C., Wilborn, C., Roberts, M., Smith-Ryan, A., Kleiner, S., Jäger, R., Collins, R., Cooke, M., Davis, J., Galvan, E., Greenwood, M., Lowery, L., Wildman, R., Antonio, J. and Kreider, R. (2018) 'ISSN exercise & sports nutrition review update: research & recommendations'. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 15(1) pp. 30. DOI: 10.1186/s12970-018-0242-y

  • Sökmen, B., Armstrong, L., Kraemer, W., Casa, D., Dias, J., Judelson, D. and Maresh, C. (2008) 'Caffeine use in sports: considerations for the athlete'. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 22(3) pp. 978-986. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181660cec

Nutrition, Caffeine, CoffeeJames SinclairJames Sinclair Performance NutritionCoffee, Caffeine, Performance Nutrition, Supplements, Nutrition, NutritionistComment