Improve Endurance and Burn More Fat: The Science Behind Why Coffee is the Best Pre-Workout
Workouts are better with coffee. We it feel every time we down a mug of Megaton and step into the gym – the buzz helps us focus better, push harder, and run further.
But why?
Caffeine’s impact on athletic performance is well-studied by sports scientists. So today, we did some digging and brewed up the top reasons behind the science of HOW Megaton helps us dominate our workouts.
What the Science Says:
Drinking caffeine before a workout helps you:
- Improve Workout Endurance (Especially for high long-distance runners and cyclists!)
- Reduce Muscle Pain
- Burn More Fat
Improve Workout Endurance
Studies show that caffeine helps us run further, lift longer, and climb higher. This happens because caffeine makes it easier for our muscles to burn fat for energy and because our increased alertness makes us feel that exercising is more enjoyable.
To get more specific, ingesting caffeine before a workout results in a “prolonged time to exhaustion.” A study from the University of Guelph in Ontario found that caffeine before a workout “decreases muscle glycogenolysis by approximately 55% over the first 15 minutes of exercise” – which basically means our muscles have more energy for longer periods of time.
In fact, a 2017 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that consuming caffeine helped cyclists pedal harder and race faster than those who hadn’t consumed any caffeine.
Reduce Muscle Pain
Caffeine also reduces muscle pain after workouts. A 2013 study from the University of Rhode Island tested college students doing bicep curls and found that ingesting caffeine after a workout “resulted in … lower levels of soreness on day 2 and day 3 compared with placebo.”
This finding has been replicated in more studies looking at the impact of caffeine into delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) as well.
Burn More Fat:
As if reducing pain and allowing us to lift longer wasn’t helpful enough already, consuming caffeine before a workout can help us burn more fat too. This is because caffeine helps our muscles switch from using glycogen as fuel to using fat as fuel.
To quote a study from the American Journal of Physiology, caffeine prior to a workout helps us burn more fat because there is “an increased availability of fat and/or ability of mitochondria to oxidize fat during exercise preceded by Caf [caffeine] ingestion”
If you don’t feel like sloshing through a bunch of scientific journal articles, then check out this nice overview in Men’s Journal.
Other Things You Should Know
Drink Coffee 1 Hour Before Your Workout
To get the maximum impact for your workout, researchers typically recommend ingesting caffeine (we recommend drinking a cup of Megaton) about 1 hour before your workout. This is about how long it takes your body to see the peek effects of caffeine.
Don’t Overdo It
Yes, caffeine helps us dominate our workouts. But don’t overdo it. Megaton’s caffeine is INTENSE. Know your limits
Everyone Benefits from Drinking Coffee
Best of all. The New York Times points out that athletes see performance benefits from caffeine even if they already drink it all the time. (Good news for us that chug coffee before every workout).
In short, it doesn’t matter if you are an occasional coffee drinker or full-on caffeine addict. Drinking coffee before a workout will boost endurance, decrease pain, and burn more fat.
Ditch the Additives and Elevate Your Pre-Workout
We love Megaton because it is a NATURAL source of caffeine. Unlike energy drinks or pre-workout mixes that are packed with sugars and added chemicals… Megaton’s caffeine comes 100% from the beans that we source.
So ditch the additives, grab a cup of coffee and embrace the Megaton buzz to dominate your workout.
If you are ready to upgrade your pre-workout then give Megaton coffee a try and we'll deliver a bag of insanely fresh and seriously intense coffee to your door.