MVP CAFFEINE 200MG

Stay Alert Formula

• Restores mental Alertness
• Reduces Fatigue
• Safe and Effective
• Increases Intensity
• Energy Stimulant

Why should I use CAFFEINE 200 ?

If you are in need of an extra boost during a slow day or before your workout CAFFEINE 200 is definitely the safe and effective way to go. CAFFEINE 200 will help you go thru those sluggish days. When you feel like calling it quit, just pop one of those babies and in no time you will feel the kick that will help you stay alert.

Caffeine and Exercise

Caffeine has three main effects on the body as it relates to exercise. Caffeine acts: (1) as a stimulus to the central nervous system, (2) to decrease the contractile threshold of a muscle, allowing a smaller stimulus to elicit a muscle contraction, and (3) to increase the mobilization of free fatty acids in the blood stream.2

Free fatty acids are the portion of fat that can be burned as fuel by the muscles, and as an energy resource they are of major importance to marathoners and other distance runners.

Caffeine's Benefits to Distance Runners

Due to the increase of free fatty acids that occurs as a result of caffeine ingestion, caffeine was seen as beneficial to long distance runners, especially marathoners.

Physiologically speaking, as you run, your muscles use both fat and glycogen as fuel. Theoretically, the body has an unlimited supply of fat for distance running purposes. However, the natural tendencies of our bodies are to use mostly muscle glycogen as fuel in the first 90 minutes of running.

Caffeine increases the use of fat as fuel, thus sparing our bodies' limited supply of muscle glycogen.

After about 90 minutes, the glycogen stores can become depleted, causing you to slow down (also known as "hitting the wall") as your body switches to fat as the primary fuel.

By performing extra long runs (more than 90 minutes in duration), not only will you be able to (1) build thick, new networks of oxygen-carrying capillaries, (2) increase the number and energy-producing capacity of your muscle cells' mitochondria, (3) safely recruit and train fast-twitch muscle fibers to gain greater endurance potential, but you will also be able to (4) teach your body to begin using more fat as a fuel earlier in your runs, thereby delaying the depletion of your muscle glycogen and ultimately increasing your endurance (your ability to run for a longer period of time).

Therefore, if you could further increase the body's use of fat as a fuel earlier in your training runs (through caffeine ingestion), you could benefit from being able to train longer distances and race farther before slowing down. This is because delaying the use of glycogen will allow you to maintain a given pace longer before fatigue sets in.3

Conflicting Evidence

Together, the three studies we've discussed seemed to offer what was seen as conclusive evidence that caffeine increased fat usage and delayed the use of muscle glycogen. However, since the time of these early studies, many other reports have documented conflicting results.

In fact, present-day critics have indicated that these early studies on caffeine failed to take into account a number of critical factors, such as prior caffeine usage, dosage size, and diet in the subjects tested.

In order to clear up some of the inconsistent conclusions of these studies, a team of researchers from the University of Florida met in January 1993 to review the scientific literature on the effects of caffeine.

In this review, the researchers concluded that the majority of evidence supports caffeine as an enhancer of endurance exercise as a result of caffeine's ability to increase fat mobilization and spare glycogen use.

However, these experts concluded that caffeine is beneficial only for short-term, high-intensity exercise in animals or isolated muscle studies, but not for humans.

More recently it has been documented that extremely high doses of caffeine are required to obtain any performance improvements, and doses in such quantities would be toxic and possibly fatal in humans.7

Summary

Among the growing body of scientific research, there exists evidence both in support of and opposed to, caffeine intake as a performance enhancer for endurance exercise.

Extremely high caffeine usage can cause several health concerns and is restricted by two important governing athletic organizations. Nevertheless, caffeine can be legally used in small amounts in events governed by the IOC and NCAA and without any legal limit on training runs as well as in most road races and track meets.

Except for the legal restrictions and health concerns that should be heeded, caffeine can be used as a performance enhancer depending on (1) the individual runner's physical responsiveness, (2) the race distance, and (3) weather conditions. Test it on your next long run in cool weather to see if it works for you.

References:

1, 2, 3, 7  S. Dodd, et. al., "Caffeine and Exercise Performance: An Update," Sports Medicine, 1993, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp.14-23.

4  D. Costill, et. al., "Effects of Caffeine Ingestion on Metabolism and Exercise Performance," Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 1978, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 155-58.

5  J. Ivy, et. al., "Influence of Caffeine and Carbohydrate Feedings on Endurance Performance," Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 1979, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 6-11.

6  D. Essig, et. al., "Effects of Caffeine Ingestion on Utilization of Muscle Glycogen and Lipid During Leg Ergometer Cycling," International Journal of Sports Medicine, 1980, Vol. 1 pp. 86-90.

8  D. Sawyer, et. al., "Caffeine and Human Behavior," Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 1982, Vol. 5, pp. 415-39.

9, 10  B. Jacobson, et. al., "Health and Ergogenic Effects of Caffeine." British Journal of Sports Medicine, 1989, Vo. 23, No. 1, pp. 34-40