Caffeine and Physical Performance

Caffeine helps the body burn fat instead of carbohydrate, and it blunts the perception of pain. Both can boost endurance. For example, endurance runners who ran to exhaustion on a treadmill lasted an average of 32 minutes without caffeine, but made it to 42 minutes after drinking coffee with around 250mg of caffeine. And you don’t have to be a trained athlete to benefit. There’s no question that caffeine will improve aerobic physical endurance in non-athletes as well. People who run, jog, swim, or cycle can last longer if they’ve had 200mg to 600mg of caffeine beforehand. And new research suggests that caffeine can also improve anaerobic performance. That includes lifting heavy objects and sprinting short distances.