Caffeine can be used as an ergogenic (or physical performance-enhancing) aid in a consensus statement of nutritional strategy for athletics, recommends the International Association of Athletics Federations(now called World Athletics, WA).
Effects of Caffeine Intake on Muscle Strength and Power
At the international level of sport, even the smallest advantage can take an athlete from being a mere participant to a podium finisher. Consequently, athletes try to achieve that competitive edge with the help of performance-enhancing training methods and pre-event performance-enhancing aids. However, owing to the absence of research on caffeine’s effects on sprint performance, the recommendation is reflective of evidence from other anaerobic sports rather than sprint running in athletics, like the 100-m sprint event.‘Caffeine being a nervous system stimulant, is one such performance-enhancing aid that reduces sprint running time among athletes.’
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To advance research, a team of researchers from Japan investigated the acute effects of caffeine supplementation on sprint running performance. This study was subsequently published in the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal.While previous studies have investigated the effects of caffeine on running activity, evidence from these studies is not conclusive enough to support the World Athletics consensus. A majority of them have looked at its effects on single sprint runs of less than 60 meters. Therefore, it was important to study the ergogenic effects of caffeine on the 100-meter sprint performance.
The researchers recruited 13 male collegiate sprinters for the study. In a preliminary test, the researchers determined the time it takes for each athlete to reach peak blood plasma caffeine concentration after ingesting it. Taking this into account, the athletes were called two more times for 100-meter time trials after ingesting either caffeine or placebo supplements.
As measures of performance, researchers measured the sprint velocity and calculated the sprint time. On discounting the effects of environmental factors, the corrected sprint time was used to examine the effects of caffeine supplementation.
Athletes Can Use Caffeine to Inch Themselves Closer Towards Victory
The results revealed that the corrected 100-m sprint time was shortened significantly for athletes who received caffeine, with a decrease of 0.14 seconds compared to the controls. This decrease in the time was largely associated with a decrease in sprint time for the first 60 meters of the sprint.They also found that the mean sprint velocity for the 0–10 m and 10–20 m splits was significantly higher in the athletes who received caffeine. Moreover, no significant difference was seen in the sprint time for the last 40 meters of the sprint, despite the shortening of the sprint time in the first 60 meters.
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In the long term, these results could translate to the enhancement of sports performance for athletes by enhancing the usage of caffeine as an ergogenic aid during sprints.
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Source-Eurekalert