HEADS UP: Before diving into this post, I want to let you know it’s a pretty long read. I’ve broken the article up into four parts:
1. Background Information
2. Caffeine’s Effect on Your Diet
3. Caffeine’s Effect on Strength
4. Caffeine’s Effect on Endurance
5. Application and Takeaways
Scroll down to one of those headings to jump to the information you’re looking for, or just sit back and enjoy the whole thing! Thanks for reading!

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I’ve wanted to write this article for a long time, and I’m sitting here sipping on my morning coffee so the timing couldn’t be better!

I often find myself in conversations about caffeine use when it comes to training and nutrition. People want to know how to best apply caffeine to their goals. I get questions from clients about this all of the time, too.

• Should I use a pre-workout?
• How long before my workout should I take caffeine?
• Will caffeine really improve my performance?
• How come caffeine makes me feel so much more motivated to work out?
• Will caffeine help me lose weight?

The questions go on and on. You get the point.

Through a lot of personal experience, experience working with clients, and a heaping amount of research on the topic (thank you up front to the MASS Research Review), I’ve assembled what I believe to be a pretty comprehensive look at how we can apply caffeine to training and nutrition.

And I stress training and nutrition. That’s the focus of the information and application of this article

My hope is that once you read through this article you’ll have a really good understanding of what caffeine can enhance, what its limitations are, and how you can apply it to your goals.

As always, my general recommendation is to be smart with the information provided. Caffeine is a drug that can be abused. Moderation is going to be the best approach until you find the dosage and situations where it works best for you. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the information below.

And with that, let’s dive in!

Background Information

Let’s start with some easy-to-digest facts about caffeine before we dig deeper into its effect on training and nutrition.

To start, this article will be focused on whether or not caffeine can enhance physical performance, stamina, or recovery. As you read on, you’ll find that the answer to this question is some combination of yes and no, depending on many factors.

What we can say for sure is that Americans love their caffeine, to the tune of about 85 percent of Americans consuming at least one caffeinated beverage a day. Not all of those people are consuming it for training and nutritional purposes, of course, but the number is still staggering.

It’s safe to assume a large chunk of that 85 percent consume caffeine due to the improved mood state it provides. A cup of coffee may help us feel more ready to take on the day, or it may help us perk up a bit when feeling down or tired.

That boost, or increased alertness, is due to caffeine binding to adenosine receptors in the body. This provides an increased sense of excitability, though we can safely say the body can and will build up a tolerance to caffeine over time.

I’d imagine caffeine tolerance is something you’re familiar with if you’re reading this article. The more you consume a certain dosage of caffeine, the more your body will adjust and become accustomed to that dosage. In turn, you won’t feel that same alertness or excitability with consistent consumption of the same dosage of caffeine.

This can often lead to individuals consuming more and more caffeine on a daily basis, which is something I urge against. We’ll dive into that in more detail later.

Caffeine’s Effect on Your Diet

So, can caffeine help you lose weight?

The answer is yes and no, kind of.

There has been some research on the effects of caffeine on appetite suppression. The results have not been in favor of caffeine reducing the amount of food eaten on a daily basis, though.

In a 2018 study, participants consumed 10 percent fewer calories at breakfast after consuming caffeine. The catch here is that those same participants ended up replacing those calories later in the day with more food, making for no significant reduction in calories on a 24-hour basis.

This evidence is consistent with other studies that have found a slight, immediate reduction followed by increased consumption of food as the day went on.

Now, something I wonder about is if coffee — not caffeine — is an effective appetite suppressant. From personal experience, I’d say yes. I can fast for up to 24 hours, and I normally use black coffee (caffeinated or decaf) as a tool to tide my hunger. I can’t say exactly why it works for me. There’s research that even suggests this isn’t effective at appetite suppression, but sometimes if you find something that works for you, you have to roll with it.

One thing I do think we can confirm about caffeine and its ability to aid in weight loss is that it makes us more energized. Often when we feel more energized, we’ll move more throughout the day — whether we mean to or not.

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is “the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise.” It’s likely that our non-exercise activity goes up when consuming caffeine. We also consume caffeine purposely to supplement our workouts, which also increases energy expenditure.

So, in a way caffeine can and does assist in weight management or weight loss. However, that impact is likely more attributed to promoting physical activity than curbing appetite or boosting metabolic rate and burning calories due to caffeine alone.

Caffeine’s Effect on Strength

One area that it seems there is a clear advantage to caffeine is with strength training. There’s a lot of research on the topic, and much of that research shows at least small improvements. In some cases, the improvement is quite dramatic.

For starters, we know that caffeine has been shown to reduce the perception of a specific exercise or workout. When the perception of a difficult workout is decreased, performance often increases.

Caffeine has even been shown to help resist fatigue during strenuous activities. Again, a clear potential advantage for the strength training crowd. It has also been proven to increase power output.

In one study, caffeine supplementation was found to improve performance in the hack squat, knee extension, and bench press. Another study found caffeine to improve most performance measures, including max squat strength. And yet another study found performance improvements in the vertical jump, seated medicine ball throw, one-rep max squat, and bench press.

There are many more studies out there showing similar types of performance improvements, but you get the gist.

Something interesting to note is there does seem to be a trend in the research showing greater performance benefits to lower-body training, as opposed to upper-body, something noted in the MASS Research Review. Perhaps the reduced perception of difficulty and improved fatigue maintenance is at play here. Personally, I can say I find lower-body training to be much more challenging and physically taxing than upper-body training. Perhaps there’s a correlation here.

Another thing worth noting is that the caffeine dosage in many of these studies is very high — like WAY higher than I’d recommend an individual consume for an entire day, let alone prior to training. So, it may not be logical for anyone to expect to see such drastic enhancements to training as seen in some of these studies. But with that said, it is safe to assume caffeine can provide a performance boost in the gym.

Caffeine’s Effect on Endurance

I haven’t read as much research on endurance training, but from what I have seen there are similar findings to that of strength. With decreased perception of difficulty and an improved mood state, caffeine can help individuals perform better with endurance training. Tolerance to caffeine will be a factor as well.

A recent study showed a clear development of tolerance to caffeine over a 20-day period. Monitoring VO2max showed caffeine had its greatest effect on Day 1 as opposed to Day 20.

But this study does bring to mind the consideration of “placebo.” For many of us, simply having caffeine — whether we feel its effects or not — gives us a mental boost when it comes to our workouts. We feel more ready to take on the next challenge, regardless of whether or not that dose of caffeine provided us with any substantial boost.

I can speak from personal experience of taking pre-workout powder before my workouts. I have been taking one scoop before the majority of my workouts for years. I haven’t increased the dosage at all, so I know realistically the pre-workout drink isn’t providing me with much, if anything at all.

However, there’s something about having that caffeine as part of my routine that gets me going. When I start sipping on the drink, I start getting into a mental zone for the challenge ahead. The taste and the process get me ready, and without that taste and process I feel underprepared to take on stress.

The “placebo effect” is something to consider.

Applications and Takeaways

Once again, something to note about much of the research we have is the dosage is often very high — far higher that I’d recommend or than may be tolerable for some people in one dose.

As Greg Nuckols noted in his article, How Much Does Caffeine Boost Your Strength?: “One thing worth noting was the dosage used: 6mg/kg is quite a lot of caffeine by normal standards.” He continued, “To put that dosage in perspective, if you weigh 80kg (~175lbs), that means you’d need to consume 480mg of caffeine to match the dosage used in this study – that’s about five cups of coffee or three 16oz Monster energy drinks.”

That’s a ton, even if you’ve been supplementing caffeine for a while, so interpret the findings with that in mind.

I don’t recommend ever using that much caffeine prior to a workout. For most people, I don’t recommend that much caffeine per day. BUT, I do recommend using caffeine prior to exercise, based on both findings from the research and my own personal experiences with my own training and with clients.

I think a single scoop of certain pre-workout powders, a reasonably dosed energy drink, or a cup of coffee are useful and effective tools to consume prior to working out. There are clear performance advantages to doing so, and there aren’t many drawbacks as long as you dose your caffeine intake appropriately.

Additionally, something to remember is that our bodies develop a tolerance to caffeine over time. A simple way to combat this tolerance is to cycle off caffeine from time to time — or at least cycle your caffeine dosage down periodically.

A simple strategy I use is that I cycle my caffeine intake down whenever I take a de-load from training. My de-load week usually occurs every 6-7 weeks. At that time, I drop intensity and training volume way down. I don’t necessarily need a huge energy boost to get through my workouts, so I use that as an opportunity to cycle my caffeine intake down as well.

From my experience, this reduction in caffeine for a period of time can promote greater influence of caffeine on a lower dose, which is great for me because I like to stay right around 300 mg per day (or lower).

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I hope you found this article useful and that you learned something new that you can apply to your own daily routine when it comes to training, nutrition, and caffeine.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I’d also highly recommend you checking out the MASS Research Review or any of the studies linked above. There’s a ton of really interesting information to dig into that can teach you more about this topic.

And if you’re interested in coaching, get in touch with me and let’s talk about your goals and if online coaching might be the right fit for you.

Thanks for reading!

CGF