CAFFEINE, COFFEE, AND THEIR BENEFITS ON SPORTS PERFORMANCE!

"Caffeine: What Is It?
Let's begin by answering the question of what caffeine is. Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, and small amounts in cocoa. It is an ergogenic aid and has a stimulating effect. It affects the nervous system and accelerates messages to the brain.
The feeling of fatigue in our body is provided by adenosine receptors in the brain. Adenosine creates a feeling of tiredness when it binds to its receptors. When we consume coffee, caffeine competes with adenosine and binds to these receptors. By occupying the receptors, it prevents the onset of fatigue. This enhances the sensation of energy before workouts and reduces the feeling of tiredness.
Benefits of Drinking Coffee Before Exercise:

1. Increased Fat Burning: Coffee increases basal metabolic rate, leading to burning more calories and fat. Research suggests that when used in conjunction with regular exercise and a weight-loss-focused diet, coffee can assist in weight loss and fat burning.
2. Enhanced Reaction Time: Coffee is a central nervous system stimulant. Its main effect is to increase focus, motor coordination, and reaction time. Improved reaction time is a significant advantage in sports such as football, tennis, basketball, and American football.
3. Reduction of Aches: Studies indicate that consuming a cup of coffee during or after exercise can reduce muscle aches. It also helps alleviate delayed-onset muscle soreness after workouts, allowing for more frequent and efficient training.
4. Increased Power in Muscle Contractions: Caffeine can enhance calcium mobility, leading to increased power in muscle contractions. This can result in more effective contractions during weightlifting, allowing for a higher volume of work in training.
5. Diuretic Effect: Caffeine acts as a diuretic, promoting water loss from the body. Athletes seeking weight gain and bodybuilders looking to shed excess water before competitions often use caffeine for its diuretic effect. It's essential to increase sodium and water intake to prevent dehydration and electrolyte loss.

In summary, consuming coffee before exercise can offer various benefits, including increased fat burning, enhanced reaction time, reduced muscle aches, improved muscle contraction power, and a diuretic effect. However, it's crucial to manage water and electrolyte loss, especially for performance athletes."
Please note that this is a summary, and you may adjust the details based on the context or additional information you have.

Caffeine Dependency, Risks, and Tolerance
Research indicates that caffeine demonstrates its benefits at moderate consumption levels. Excessive intake may lead to the body building tolerance, resulting in diminished desired effects over time. Therefore, maintaining an average level of consumption without increasing tolerance is the most sensible approach to consistently reap the benefits.
As the body builds tolerance to caffeine, we start to experience diminishing stimulating and euphoric effects. You may recall times when you felt exceptionally good or your mood elevated after having your first cup of coffee or during periods of infrequent coffee consumption. This effect diminishes over time as tolerance to caffeine develops.
However, we cannot claim that the beneficial effects at the metabolic level diminish with tolerance, especially for athletes. Even if you don't experience that sudden stimulant effect, having developed tolerance will still help alleviate the sensation of fatigue and increase endurance during exercise. The increase in muscle contraction and its effects on performance will not be lost with tolerance. Moreover, research suggests that caffeine's ability to reduce the perception of pain during exercise and decrease the sensation of fatigue is not lost with regular use.
While some effects provided by regular caffeine intake may weaken, weightlifters and athletes involved in performance sports will not experience a loss in the main desired effects.
As for the risks of caffeine, it is a situation that should be consulted with a doctor depending on one's health status. In healthy individuals, there is no warning for normal consumption.
How Much Caffeine Should We Consume?
Most pre-workout supplements contain between 100-250mg of caffeine. A medium-sized cup of coffee contains approximately 150mg of caffeine. However, to obtain all performance effects such as increased strength and endurance, one needs to consume around 4-6mg of caffeine per kg of body weight.
For example, a 75kg athlete needs to consume between 300-450mg.
However, upon hearing this, we should not rush to double our doses of pre-workout supplements. This is because everyone's sensitivity to caffeine can differ. When sensitivity is high, consuming up to 450mg of caffeine can lead to gastrointestinal problems, tremors, discomfort due to a high heart rate, and anxiety attacks. If you are not accustomed to these conditions, it may lead to a decrease in your performance. Therefore, everyone should adjust the amount they consume according to their sensitivity to caffeine. If you don't drink coffee, you can start with one cup of coffee a day and gradually increase the dosage.
Another important point is the effect of caffeine on sleep. The half-life of caffeine is between 4 to 6 hours. In other words, 4-6 hours after taking caffeine, half of the amount you took will still be in your system. Therefore, adjusting your dosage and consumption time according to your sleep time would be the most sensible approach. We do not recommend taking the suggested dose of 4-6 mg per kg in the afternoon since it is a high dose; it may make it difficult for you to fall asleep. Adjust your coffee consumption according to your sleeping hours. For example, if you are not highly sensitive, you can consume the 400mg dose 8 hours before bedtime. We know that sleep will be much more important than the benefits caffeine provides, so be careful not to consume coffee when you are not exercising!