The European Journal of Applied Physiology has published a new study on the effects of caffeine on supramaximal cycling performance. Researchers from Australia’s Griffith University recruited highly trained cyclists to complete indoor rides to exhaustion at 120 percent VO2max. They performed the test on two occasions, once after taking caffeine and once after taking placebo. Time to exhaustion was significantly greater following caffeine ingestion.
The researchers took several measurements to determine the cause of the performance increase with caffeine. No significant physiological differences were found except that circulating levels of potassium ions (K+) were lower during the warm-up in the caffeine trial. Since the accumulation of potassium ions outside muscle cells contributes to fatigue at very high exercise intensities, the apparent lowering of K+ levels after caffeine ingestion may have increased the amount of time it took for K+ accumulation to reach critical levels during the performance trial.
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