Caffeine and Exercise - Things to Know

When I started teaching a running 101 course at the YMCA, the most common question I got--believe it or not--wasn't about stretching, technique, or anything like that. It was about caffeine. Strange. Maybe it was because a few articles were published around that time talking about caffeine's effect on exercise. Either way, I figured it would be a fun topic to discuss here ...

The basics:

• Caffeine is a diuretic. It robs your body of water. So, if you're going to drink it before exercise, be sure you make up for it by increasing water intake. A good rule to follow is one cup of water for each cup of coffee (or caffeinated beverage).
• Caffeine releases FFAs (free fatty acids) into your blood, which can help increase energy. The caveat to this is that your body needs to be "trained" to use fat as energy in order to do it efficiently. It's not difficult, but it takes time exercising at higher-than-normal intensity levels to "teach" your body how to use fat as fuel. If you want to learn more about this, read this article (science-speak alert). 
• Once the body is trained to use fat as fuel, caffeine can be a great way to delay fatigue, as the body will burn the fat (released by caffeine into the blood) as fuel first, and glucose later (glucose depletion is the major cause of fatigue).
• Caffeine gives you energy! Duh. This is the reason people ask the question. But it's not stupid to look at the bottom line: if a cup of coffee or tea helps you get out of bed in the morning to exercise, that is a good thing! 
• Recent studies have shown that caffeine increases nitric oxide levels, which promotes better blood flow to the muscles - this means better stamina during resistance training, and a boost in strength/power/endurance

What's the takeaway? Caffeine can definitely help with workouts! Just be careful to drink enough water and, like everything, use it in moderation.

What's your experience with caffeine and working out?? How much do you drink/how soon before you workout? What effects have you seen?  

Boot Camp Sunday - Free As Always

Hi everyone-

Boot camp! This Sunday, 9 a.m., on the grass just South of the Hilton in Mission Bay (our usual spot).

Come out! Tell your friends!! I think I will be organizing two courses this week - one intense and one moderate - so you can pick your poison :)

Enjoy your Friday afternoon and I hope to see you all there!

-Jesse

Drink Water!

I think most everyone knows that drinking a lot of water is good for you, and extremely important if you exercise on a regular basis. However, if you ask 10 people, you're likely to get 10 different answers when it comes to how much to drink and why it's so important. This subject popped into my head last weekend when my dad was visiting and we were discussing ways to avoid getting sick so much (hint: drink more water).

Anyway, I figured it might be helpful to review what "most" health professionals believe about appropriate water intake. As you can imagine, there are millions of articles out there, like this one from livestrong.com or this one from fitness.com.

One thing that is pretty cool is this "water intake calculator" on about.com. 10 questions, including one about activity level, and they give you a suggested amount of water per day. For example, I am supposed to drink about 3.5 liters today (15 cups) because I worked out for 90 minutes, I weigh 225, etc. Very cool, very easy to use.

If you don't want to read any of the articles, follow my key five guidelines and you should be pretty good to go:

• Drink at least 8 cups of water per day, if you're going to err, err on the side of more not less
• If you're exercising at a normal level (not too vigorous, not too mellow), add at least one cup of water for each 15 minutes you exercise
• Drink more when it's very hot or very cold -the body needs it in both scenarios because it is working harder to either heat or cool your body. You need to especially pay attention to this if exercising in hot or cold conditions - the body is very susceptible to dehydration in these cases, which can be very dangerous
• Drink more when you're ill - your immune system is working twice as hard, which means it needs more water to help move toxins, cool fevers and thin mucus (yum yum)
• Drink one cup of water for each serving of caffeine, which is a diuretic and "steals" water from your body

If you want more info, jump online and google "proper water intake." You'll find tons of stuff.

Drink up!

Managing Stress Through Exercise

 Life is hard. Work, relationships, family issues, money problems, car trouble ... you name it, problems can sneak up fast, causing the stress monster to attack. Everyone has a unique way of dealing with it - and most people know (and embrace) the fact that exercise can really help. Some people just don't really know why. Myself included.

So I decided to do a little digging ... I found a few simple, easy-to-read articles that explain a bit about how exercise helps manage stress - like this one.

I also liked this one from the Mayo Clinic, which is written well and also gives easy-to-follow tips on formulating and sticking with an exercise plan. It explains the three major benefits of exercise with respect to stress. Exercise causes an increase in endorphins, the body's feel-good neurotransmitters; it helps move a person's concentration from the object of the stress to the goal of the exercise, which creates a more clear head upon completion; and it improves mood through increased self confidence, better sleep (never to be underestimated), improved appearance, etc.

It may be a walk after work, p90x with a friend, a game of softball with friends or a weightlifting session - the point is, when you're really stressed out, try and get some exercise, it will definitely help things out.

How do you use exercise to help you de-stress? Have you tried it?

First Boot Camp of 2011 - Jan. 16, 9 am

Hi everyone!

I hope you can join me for the first (free, as always) boot camp of 2011! Next Sunday, Jan. 16, at 9 a.m in Mission Bay - the normal spot just north of the Hilton.

We'll get things back rolling right with some partner work, so try and bring a friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, or just someone who you think you'll work well with!

I hope to see everyone out there. Happy New Year to those of you I haven't seen!

-Jesse