Good News for Seniors: Coffee Kills Pain When You
Exercise, May Help Performance, Too
But does that reduction in pain translate into an
improvement in sport performance?
April 1, 2009 Near here is news that will appeal
to many senior citizens who love their coffee. Java will reduce pain
when you exercise and improve your performance. Thats what Robert Motl, cyclist
and professor, says he has found.
"We've shown that caffeine reduces pain reliably,
consistently during cycling, across different intensities, across
different people, different characteristics, says the former
competitive cyclist, University of Illinois kinesiology and community
health professor.
Motl says he routinely met his teammates at a
coffee shop to fuel up on caffeine prior to hitting the pavement on
long-distance training rides.
"The notion was that caffeine was helping us train
harder to push ourselves a little harder," he said.
The cyclists didn't know why it helped, they just
knew it was effective.
"I think intuitively a lot of people are taking
caffeine before a workout and they don't realize the actual benefit
they're experiencing. That is, they're experiencing less pain during the
workout," Motl said.
He said it's becoming increasingly common for
athletes before competing to consume a variety of substances that
include caffeine, motivated by "the notion that it will help you
metabolize fat more readily."
"That research isn't actually very compelling,"
Motl said. "What's going on in my mind is people are doing it for that
reason, but they actually take that substance that has caffeine and they
can push themselves harder. It doesn't hurt as much."
The U. of I. professor has been investigating the
relationship between caffeine and physical activity since taking a
slight detour during his doctoral-student days, when his work initially
was focused on exploring possible links between caffeine intake, spinal
reflexes and physical activity.
Seven years later, with several studies considering
the relationship between physical activity and caffeine behind him, Motl
has a much better understanding of why that cuppa Joe he used to consume
before distance training and competing enhanced his cycling ability.
Early in his research, he became aware that
"caffeine works on the adenosine neuromodulatory system in the brain and
spinal cord, and this system is heavily involved in nociception and pain
processing." Since Motl knew caffeine blocks adenosine from working, he
speculated that it could reduce pain.
A number of studies by the U. of I. professor
support that conclusion, including investigations considering such
variables as exercise intensity, dose of caffeine, anxiety sensitivity
and gender.
Motl's latest published study on the effects of
caffeine on pain during exercise appears in the April edition of the
International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.
"This study looks at the effects of caffeine on
muscle pain during high-intensity exercise as a function of habitual
caffeine use," he said. "No one has examined that before.
"What we saw is something we didn't expect:
caffeine-naοve individuals and habitual users have the same amount of
reduction in pain during exercise after caffeine (consumption)."
The study's 25 participants were fit, college-aged
males divided into two distinct groups: subjects whose everyday caffeine
consumption was extremely low to non-existent, and those with an average
caffeine intake of about 400 milligrams a day, the equivalent of three
to four cups of coffee.
After completing an initial exercise test in the
lab on an ergometer, or stationary cycle, for determination of maximal
oxygen consumption or aerobic power, subjects returned for two monitored
high-intensity, 30-minute exercise sessions.
An hour prior to each session, cyclists who had
been instructed not to consume caffeine during the prior 24-hour period
were given a pill. On one occasion, it contained a dose of caffeine
measuring 5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (equivalent to two to
three cups of coffee); the other time, they received a placebo.
During both exercise periods, subjects' perceptions
of quadriceps muscle pain was recorded at regular intervals, along with
data on oxygen consumption, heart rate and work rate.
"What's interesting," Motl said, "is that when we
found that caffeine tolerance doesn't matter, we were perplexed at
first. Then we looked at reviews of the literature relative to caffeine
and tolerance effects across a variety of other stimuli. Sometimes you
see them, sometimes you don't. That is, sometimes regular caffeine use
is associated with a smaller response, whereas, other times, it's not."
No one's been able to figure out the reason for the
inconsistency, Motl said.
"Clearly, if you regularly consume caffeine, you
have to have more to have that bigger, mental-energy effect. But the
tolerance effect is not ubiquitous across all stimuli. Even brain
metabolism doesn't show this tolerance-type effect. That is, with
individuals who are habitual users versus non-habitual users, if you
give them caffeine and do brain imaging, the activation is identical.
It's really interesting why some processes show tolerance and others
don't."
Regarding the outcome of the current research, he
said, "it may just be that pain during exercise doesn't show tolerance
effects to caffeine."
Motl said one of the next logical steps for his
research team would be to conduct studies with rodents in order to
better understand the biological mechanism for caffeine in reducing
pain.
"If we can get at the biological mechanism, we can
begin to understand why there may or may not be this kind of tolerance."
Motl said another research direction might be to
determine caffeine's effect on sport performance.
"We've shown that caffeine reduces pain reliably,
consistently during cycling, across different intensities, across
different people, different characteristics. But does that reduction in
pain translate into an improvement in sport performance?"
Meanwhile, the current research could prove
encouraging for a range of people, including the average person who
wants to become more physically active to realize the health benefits.
"One of the things that may be a practical
application, is if you go to the gym and you exercise and it hurts, you
may be prone to stop doing that because pain is an aversive stimulus
that tells you to withdraw. So if we could give people a little caffeine
and reduce the amount of pain they're experiencing, maybe that would
help them stick with that exercise.
"Maybe then they'll push a little harder as well
maybe get even better adaptations to the exercise."
Co-authors of the newly published study are U. of
I. professor of kinesiology and community health Steven P. Broglio;
former U. of I. graduate students Rachael C. Gliottoni and John R.
Meyers; and Sigurbjorn A. Arngrimsson, Center for Sport and Health
Sciences, Iceland University of Education.
Keep up with the latest news for senior citizens, baby
boomers
April 1, 2009 Near here is news that will appeal
to many senior citizens who love their coffee. Java will reduce pain
when you exercise and improve your performance. Thats what Robert Motl, cyclist
and professor, says he has found.
