Benefits of Caffeine and Multiple Sprint Running Performance

When was the last time you drank 2 cups of strong Starbucks coffee and did a 12 × 30 m, repeated at 35 second intervals?

Doing a 2 x 6 x 30 meter sprints with blocks (or standing pike start) is a common workout providing you have a full recovery for quality sprinting. Technique and ground contact times degrades with fatigue and lactic acid.

The most I ever did was a speed/special endurance “split” workouts of 2 x 200m (60 second recovery) or 3 x 100m (45 second recovery).

To emulate the above workout indoors, we would do 3 or 4 sets of 60 meters. After 60 meters, you slow down (which takes about 20 meters, or before the smashing into the wall), come to a complete stop, turn around, then accelerate again. This would ensure 180 – 240 meters of high quality running. In my early days of track, we would run a 200 or 300 meters on the indoor track but the tight curves caused injuries. It is better to run in a linear fashion for the sake of speed training, at least on the indoor track.

So, when I read this study, I was a bit baffled by the running protocol. What were they trying to achieve?

Benefits of Caffeine

What can you improve from excess Caffeine Supplementation?

• reaction time?
• acceleration?
• top end speed?
• speed endurance?
• special endurance?

The study was performed at the School of Human Sciences, St Mary’s University College, UK. The abstract can be found here.

The protocol was an indoor multiple sprint running trial (12 × 30 m; repeated at 35-s intervals)

Caffeine was administered orally at 5 mg/kg body mass. For me, that’s 85kg or 187 lbs = 425 mg of caffeine! That’s a bit less than 2 Tall cups of Starbucks coffee (at 260mg per Tall cup) or over 4 “No-Doze” pills! Wow!

With that much caffeine supplementation, I hope there was a toilet nearby.

The result?

Conclusion: Although the effect of recovery duration on caffeine-induced responses to multiple sprint work requires further investigation, the results of the present study show that caffeine has ergogenic properties with the potential to benefit performance in both single and multiple sprint sports.