The Caffeinated Cyclist

Drinking caffeine before strenuous bike rides reduces muscle pain, a new study suggests.

Reporting in the April edition of the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, Illinois professor Robert Motl describes how java comes to the rescue. He says caffeine works on a system in the brain and spinal cord called adenosine neuromodulatory that is involved in pain processing.

“Caffeine blocks adenosine from binding so you stop part of the pain receiving process,” he says. “We do not have the data to show how caffeine takes effect, but we do know the physiology of caffeine.” He said one of the next steps for his research team would be to conduct studies with rodents in order to better understand caffeine’s role in reducing pain.

His study involved 25 fit, college-aged males. One group had low to non-existent caffeine intake. The second group routinely drank three to four cups of coffee a day. Everyone was instructed not to drink coffee 24 hours prior to the session. For one session, they were given a caffeine pill, the equivalent of two to three cups of coffee. For the next session, they were given a placebo.
During both exercise sessions, riders were asked to record perceptions of quadricep pain. Motl says the results surprised him. Both habitual and “naive users,” or people who didn’t drink coffee, experienced less pain after taking the pill.

A former competitive cyclist, Motl says he would always meet other cyclists at coffee shops before they would ride so “we could get all loaded up. And wherever you go in Europe, you’ll see cyclists sipping on a shot of espresso or drinking their latte before riding.”

Motl thinks people intuitively know to drink coffee before riding because it makes the exercise less painful and they can push harder.

Photo of Motl with his bike and a cup of coffee by University of Illinois.

--By Janice Lloyd, USA TODAY

Update: WebMD has pretty much the same story