Using Caffeine to Boost Athletic Performance: Part 1 (Coffee vs Caffeine)

You're already using the world's most popular PED - here's how to optimize its benefits.

1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, more commonly known as caffeine, is one of humankind's oldest drugs. It’s also the most widely used, surpassing alcohol in popularity.

A 2022 survey found over 90% of Americans consume caffeine, with 3 out of 4 consumers doing so daily.

Between 1984 and 2004, caffeine was a banned substance in sports due to its well-established ergogenic (performance-enhancing) effects. Despite scientific evidence for those ergogenic benefits growing ever-stronger, the World Anti-Doping Agency removed caffeine from its list of banned substances, no doubt due to the complications of prohibiting such a ubiquitous dietary ingredient. Caffeine now remains on WADA’s so-called ‘monitoring program’.

So as a substance with acute affects on cognition and alertness, and one whose performance-enhancing effects were confirmed decades ago, this means most people are taking both a stimulant and a PED.

Most people, of course, don’t look like dopers. Most, unfortunately, don’t even look like they exercise.

If you do exercise or compete in athletic events, then caffeine can boost your performance - safely and legally. However, despite decades of research, there still remains significant uncertainty about just what caffeine can do, and how to best use it as an ergogenic.

• What doses of caffeine provide an ergogenic benefit? Is more better, or is there an ideal range?

• Caffeine is well known to enhance performance in endurance activities like running and cycling, but what about at the gym? Will a shot of caffeine increase your one-rep maximum (1RM) or help you squeeze out more reps on your favorite exercises?

• Caffeine enhances short-term performance, but what about long-term use? Will caffeine make you leaner, stronger and fitter over the longer term?

• Does the ergogenic impact of caffeine differ between males and females?

• Does regular consumption (“habituation”) weaken the ergogenic effects of caffeine?

I’ll address all these questions in coming installments. Today, I want to address another key question, and also issue an important safety warning.

Coffee vs Caffeine, Plus Another White Powder You Should Avoid

Coffee is the world’s most popular source of caffeine. Even in countries like the US, it outranks soft drinks, tea, and energy drinks as the primary caffeine delivery vehicle.

Despite this, most of the research into the ergogenic effects of caffeine has been performed using caffeine anhydrous (dehydrated caffeine), not coffee.

The use of caffeine anhydrous capsules/tablets makes it easier for researchers to ensure study participants receive the desired amount of caffeine. It also eliminates any potential confounding effect of the numerous other compounds in coffee.

Caffeine anhydrous is readily available, most famously as NoDoz tablets.

Overdoses involving caffeine tablets are almost always intentional. However, it is possible to accidentally overdose on caffeine, and the consequences can be catastrophic.

While supplements are most commonly consumed as capsules or tablets, many are also available in powdered form. The powdered versions are typically cheaper on a per-gram basis, and some supplements are more convenient to use in ‘bulk’ form. For example, creatine and branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) are typically taken in multi-gram dosages that would necessitate swallowing a large number of capsules. Far easier to scoop out a teaspoon of powder, mix it in water, and drink it.

There have been times I’ve absentmindedly gulped down a heaped teaspoon of creatine when I thought I was taking BCAAs. Because creatine is a fairly benign substance when taken in non-idiotic amounts, there were no negative repercussions.

Make that mistake with caffeine anhydrous powder - where 1 teaspoon can equal around 28 cups of coffee - and the consequences can be fatal.

If you think I’m presenting a hypothetical scenario that has probably never happened to anyone, think again. The literature is replete with case reports of fatalities and life-threatening emergencies occurring after ingestion of multi-gram amounts of caffeine; some of these involved accidental overdose of powdered caffeine by gym buffs (Jabbar 2013; Eichner 2014; Magdalan 2017; Andrade 2018).

In 2021, UK personal trainer Tom Mansfield accidentally measured out way too much pre-workout caffeine powder, drinking the equivalent of almost 200 cups of coffee. He died within an hour.

A legal inquest into Tom’s death found a staggering blood caffeine level of 392 mg/L in his system. To place that figure in perspective, 250 mg and 500 mg doses of caffeine given to healthy adults produced peak blood caffeine levels of 7 mg/L and 17 mg/L, respectively.

In the early hours of New Year’s Day 2018, 21-year-old Australian Lachlan Foote made a protein shake, adding pure caffeine powder to the mix. The amount he added is unknown, but in a 2:07 am Facebook message to friends, Lachlan complained his protein powder tasted "kinda bitter" and wrote: "I think my protein powder has gone off."

Lachlan then lost consciousness in the bathroom of his family home. His family found him “dead and cold on the bathroom floor" later that morning. The coroner’s report listed “caffeine toxicity” as the cause of death.

Caffeine anhydrous powder is a white substance that can easily be mistaken for numerous other supplements or kitchen ingredients. I submit it is wholly unsuitable for general use as a supplement when it must be measured out in minute amounts and where miscalculation can (and does) result in painful death.

So please stay the heck away from powdered caffeine. Your life is worth far more than the price margin between powdered and encapsulated caffeine. Pay the extra for tablets or real coffee, and live to train another day.

Speaking of real coffee, whether it offers the same ergogenic benefit as isolated caffeine has long been a point of contention. So what’s the deal? Is there any ergogenic difference between a strong cup of jitter juice and caffeine tablets?