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Does Caffeine Enhance Sports Performance?

By The Real Buzz, 09/11/19, 7:30PM PDT

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Current researchers tend to suggest that caffeine almost certainly has an ergogenic influence in some people, in some forms of exercise. In other words, it isn’t a magic bullet. But let’s have a look at who might benefit from caffeine use — and when. 

A pre-race cup of coffee is as much part of the keen exercisers ergogenic arsenal as a bottle of sports drink these days. But does caffeine really enhance sports performance, or is it all something of a storm in a, er, coffee cup?

The jury is still out — but there have been some very interesting findings since caffeine’s performance-enhancing effect was first discovered in the 1970s. In a series of caffeine-related studies conducted at Ball State University, cycle time to exhaustion increased by 19.5 per cent following caffeine intake. A whole batch of studies followed this initial experiment — with mixed results.