Faster, stronger for longer - get your caffeine kick

David is a member of the British Military Fitness Race team, a seasoned marathon runner and has recently launched a kickstarter campaign for a new concentrated caffeine sports sweet called Caffeine Bullet. Here David discusses the benefits of using caffeine when you train and race.

 "It’s coming up to ten years since I started running and it seems almost as long since I ran a personal best. Once you start getting close to your peak, shaving off even seconds can take months of training, so when I discovered that caffeine could potentially knock minutes off even a half marathon time, I took caffeine during my next race and have come to rely on it to power me through the second half of races.

There have been over 75 studies on the use of caffeine during exercise. The average improvement in performance is 12%, with increased benefits noticed during endurance exercise.

Why caffeine?

Caffeine mobilises fat as a source of fuel, sparing your glycogen stores and has been shown to:

•             Increase stamina and physical endurance, extending time to exhaustion

•             Reduced muscle pain

•             Decreasing perceived exertion

•             Improved concentration and alertness

Cut the Coffee

It’s all great new! But...here’s the bad – caffeine has diminishing returns. Your fourth coffee of the day has little effect compared to your first ever coffee and similarly if you are constantly drinking caffeine, a little bit more on race day won’t have a huge impact on your performance. So if you’re going to take advantage of caffeine, the less you consume in your daily life, the better. Other than the odd drunken vodka Red Bull, I now try to cut caffeine completely out of my diet - you don’t need to be quite as extreme though. To completely detox of caffeine before a big race can take up to 12 days, but even cutting out coffee for 4 days can make a big difference.

When to Pop?

Caffeine takes 15 to 45 minutes to hit peak concentration in the bloodstream, staying high for up to four hours, so if you need a little bit of a pep before BMF, taking some caffeine on the way to a class is perfect. Coffee is the obvious choice, but a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology concluded that there is a compound in coffee that appears to inhibit some of the performance enhancing effects of caffeine, although you will still feel a caffeine buzz. In longer sessions (90 minutes or more) you should hold back from taking caffeine from the start or else you will peak too early. Caffeine affects me very quickly, so I’ve found that 8 miles into a half marathon and 18 into a marathon works for me to get my caffeine on, but try for yourself.

Just How Much?

The optimal dose in research has been shown to be between 3-6MG per Kilogram of bodyweight. That’s a lot, at least three cans of Red Bull for most people, so I’d recommend experimenting with smaller doses before growing in confidence and taking your optimal amount.

Caffeine is a potent drug that has been repeatedly proven to improve performance. As with all drugs do read the guidelines before use, but just having caffeine in my pocket frees me to run hard, as I know I have a booster should I start to fade. There are fewer things in racing as sweet as a personal best, so start experimenting with it in your training, so you can unleash its power in your races and here’s to a few more pbs!

To find out more about how Caffeine Bullet, the kickstarter campaign is currently live or if you have any specific questions about using caffeine in your training, you can contact David and the rest of the British Military Fitness Race Team through their facebook page.