Gatorade, Powerade, water…coffee?

That’s not a typo. When it comes to athletic performance and recovery, coffee can have a place in your gym bag along with your spare shorts and deodorant stick. With coffee’s caffeine content, it’s a natural stimulant that can be a safe alternative beverage to improve your workouts and wakefulness. In fact, caffeine from black coffee has become one of the more popular and effective pre-workout drinks according to research.

Coffee is effective pre-workout

As we touched on, coffee is an effective pre-workout thanks to its high levels of caffeine, which has been shown to improve the body’s ability to burn fat while exercising. Drinking coffee also helps manage calories, as you’ll be less inclined to eat more because the compounds and caffeine in coffee suppresses appetite.

For best results when drinking coffee to boost athletic performance, peak stimulus occurs between 30-60 minutes after consuming a cup of Joe. Once the caffeine is sufficiently in the bloodstream, the body’s heart rate and blood pressure increases, fat stores break down, and fatty acids are released. This all leads to an energetic feeling, making you primed for a good workout.

Coffee improves metabolism

Caffeine has been shown to enhance the body’s metabolic rate, which is the rate our body uses or burns energy throughout the day.

In one study, for example, that analyzed four different trials, researchers found that the participant group consuming coffee showed a significant increase in metabolic rate during and continuing for three after ingestion. They also showed a strong increase in fat burning, a result of the increased metabolism, meaning coffee is highly efficient to burn fat during and for several hours after a workout.

For best results, researchers suggest consuming one to no more than two cups of coffee one hour before starting your workout. Large amounts of coffee and caffeine have proven to be counterproductive, however, so remember that more is not necessarily better.

Coffee improves concentration

Athletic performance, especially at higher levels of competition, is as demanding mentally as it is physically. If your head isn’t in the game, your body will be less responsive to training.

Coffee has been shown to improve mental focus, as there have been studies linking coffee and caffeine as a stimulus to the central nervous system and improving brain function. Other studies have also found that caffeine positively influences areas of the brain that fuel memory and concentration. And when the mind is sharp, it leads to more efficient and productive training sessions.

Finally, in studies measuring the cognitive effects of caffeine on athletes, researchers found that athletes consuming caffeine before intense training showed better concentration, as well as an ability to sustain high levels of intense exercise. Even athletes that didn’t get enough sleep were able to work out fairly well when they had coffee before their session.

The effects of coffee on athletic performance

According to an article in the International Society of Sports Nutrition, “caffeine is effective for enhancing various types of performance when consumed in low-to-moderate doses.”

Similarly, a study published in Sports Medicine showed that caffeine can help athletes train longer, and with greater power output, as well as improving endurance and resistance to feelings of fatigue.

Endurance athletes like long-distance runners appear to benefit greatly from coffee and caffeine; research shows that coffee helps our body use fat stores as fuel during longer workouts, thereby helping burn more fat and calories. Instead of using muscle glycogen during exercise, it shifts to fat stores, allowing for more sustained periods of endurance training.

For better athletic performance, Fusion Coffee Beans offers three distinct blends of micro-lot, gourmet coffee made for an active lifestyle. They’re specifically cultivated to infuse with CBD oils, too, making for an excellent all-around alternative beverage for athletes of any performance level.