A coffee to go at the gym Boost your workout with a caffeine hit that will frappé the fat It used to be that a bottle of water or sports drink were the only ways to keep hydrated and to prevent yourself from flagging at the gym. But stopping off at Starbucks for a double espresso before you hit the treadmill is set to become a fashionable practice for the fitterati. Much maligned by some health experts when taken in excess, caffeinated drinks, such as coffee, tea and cola, are emerging as the best boost for a workout in studies that have looked at their effect on fitness. Not only does a caffeine jolt help people to keep exercising for longer, it will lead to greater fat loss, too. Higher intakes of caffeine have been shown in some studies to raise the risk of osteoporosis and cardiovascular problems, but researchers investigating caffeine’s influence on fitness and sports performance are discovering that an amount considered acceptable by most health experts — only a cup or two a day — is needed to get better results at the gym. They have shown that there are substances in caffeine which trigger the release of body fats into the bloodstream during activity. This means fat is burnt during exercise, rather than carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are stored in the muscle as glycogen but the amount that can be stored is limited. If you burn body fat first, it reserves carbohydrate for later use. The upshot? You have more energy and can exercise for longer. Although most research into caffeine’s fitness benefits has been carried out on elite athletes for whom its boost could mean the difference between winning and losing, its effects are equally helpful to anyone looking to get more out of their gym session. Jane Griffin, a sports dietitian and author of Food For Sport (Crowood Press), believes that caffeine’s ability to help the body to “use fat efficiently” means that “when taken in conjunction with regular aerobic exercise, in theory it could help you to lose weight more quickly”.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 18:33:10 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015