Oh coffee!
We all love coffee don’t we? Millions of us drink it every day and we all grab
for a cup first thing in the morning and that is not where it stops for most of
us, we continue to drink it in massive quantities all day long. So what’s the
deal? Is it beneficial for you or not? What benefits does it have for
bodybuilding?
Benefits of drinking coffee
Coffee
contains caffeine which is a stimulant that has the effect of making us awake
and alert as it has your body releasing adrenaline. Studies have shown that
taking a cup of coffee before working out can increase your performance and
endurance by almost a third. Taking a cup before working out, muscles will use
fat for energy reserves rather than glucose in the blood resulting in burning
fat easier.
Harmful effects of drinking coffee
So if coffee
has the effect of increasing our energy levels and having us workout harder
what negative effects can there possibly be?
Quite allot actually. Long term, caffeine is very addictive and we all
know most people do not stop at drinking only one cup of coffee.
This is
where most problems start to occur. As I have said earlier coffee has your body
release adrenaline; however this can run havoc on your system as you start to
become anxious and stressed out. In my
article “Why Is My Muscle Size Not Increasing?”, I explain the effect
stress has on your body.
When your
body is under stress you release cortisol which breaks down muscle. Cortisol is
also released due to a lack of sleep which decreases our testosterone levels to
build muscle.
The energy
we get from drinking coffee wears down fast and we have to drink another cup to
keep this energy up, creating a rollercoaster effect of leaving us feeling very
tired in the end - disturbing our natural sleeping patterns.
Furthermore
caffeine has a diuretic effect on our bodies making us urinate and sweat more.
You don’t want to lose all your protein and supplements you took, do you? Your
body needs a lot of fluids when you work out for optimal muscle growth, make
sure you drink extra water when you drank some coffee.
As we can
see coffee has more harmful effects than it does beneficial effects. If you
don’t want to give up coffee that is your choice, but limit your intake to one
to two cups per day.
You could also skip that cup in the morning and
keep it for before working out in order to get that benefit. However dropping
caffeine completely will have you growing muscle faster and feeling more
energized without the slump.
