Caffeine Speeds Recovery

Thank God, someone found yet another reason for me to stick with, and enjoy, my coffee/Diet Coke addiction.

Researchers in Australia, experimenting with a tiny sample of fit cyclists (try seven of ‘em) discovered that combining caffeine with carbohydrates after exercise, boosts the speed at which your muscles restore their glycogen levels–the body’s energy stores—by 66% over recovering with carbs alone.

What this means is that if you want to bounce back quickly from an arduous bout of exercise, like say, Day 2-7 of a week-long, a 20-mile-a-day hike then you want to suck down a lot of caffeine along with whatever foods you’re stuffing your gut with. The study used the caffeine equivalent of 5- to 6-cups of coffee (Now that’s a delicious headache in the making.).

Of course, you might want to schedule this mega dose for several hours before bedtime. Several of the test subjects in the study, published recently in the Journal of Applied Physiology, did report difficulty sleeping after sucking down the caffeine bombs.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear a quad-shot Americano calling my name.

Source: ScienceDaily.com