Reducing Muscle Pain During Excercise
August 20th, 2007 by Paul JohnsonBodybuilders love the burn, it’s something we have come to love over the years. Now there is something that can help us get a longer workout before we feel exhausted. It is something that many of us have on a regular basis. It’s Caffeine! According to research studies, Caffeine not only has the ability to increase strength, but also reduce muscle pain during excercise.
Reducing muscle pain allows us to up the intensity of a workout set. We will then be able to push out more reps before being tired. So not only does caffeine work as a CNS (central nervous stimulant), but it also will help our muscle endurance. Remember that Creatine’s muscle building effects are also due to increased muscular endurance and strength effects. Caffeine makes an excellent pre-workout supplement for bodybuilders.
Awesome! Thanks for this.
I also read somewhere (on a possibly bogus site) that you shouldn’t drink coffee when taking creatine. Can this be true? Should we just drink extra water as usual?
There were some studies done a decade ago showing reduced performance when taking creatine. But people have pointed out many flaws of those studies. Creatine’s benefit has a lot to do with it’s cell volumization(increasing water in cells), while caffeine is a diuretic taking water out of the body. It’s hard to say one way or the other how much each effect each other. Creatine also helps produce ATP to give you burst of energy, so the cell volumization isn’t the only benefit of creatine. I think taking both together is probably best, but just make sure you drink a ton of water when you do. But if you are concerned that caffeine it might effect Creatine too much, eliminating caffeine is OK.
Thanks!