Caffeine, Cortisol, and the workout

[B-natural]

This thought ran through my head today as I was rather zombie-like getting up. I will tell my short story....

So I get up, eat my breakfast, plop down on the computer chair to see whats goin on online, I plan to go workout in about 1.5hrs and I was thinking damn I am not very energized, but I'll just get an energy drink before I hit the gym. The End.

Now that we've gotten through that, I thought this.... Caffeine can cause the body to spike cortisol levels, cortisol is also released during intense workouts (more from the midpoint to the end). Then I thought, caffeine always helps me push out a few more reps, but does this effect cancel itself out. I mean if I am pushing 2-3 more reps with a caffeine buzz does it help if cortisol is in the picture, and is even more in the picture since I drank the energy drink....

Curious as to what you think D?

[LLLLern]

Dam I Will Cut It Out Then

[B-natural]

well lets see what the good doctor says, for every reaction in the body, it has a purpose or a reason, it triggers another mechanism, which can be a good thing, however if it doesn't know to trigger the other mechanism or does it a bit too late, then we are all screwed.

Cortisol has its place in the body, it can trigger the release of things in the body, but with caffeine triggering a higher release of cortisol, it may end up being an overload.

I may also just be rambling...

[LLLLern]

Originally Posted by B-natural

well lets see what the good doctor says, for every reaction in the body, it has a purpose or a reason, it triggers another mechanism, which can be a good thing, however if it doesn't know to trigger the other mechanism or does it a bit too late, then we are all screwed.

Cortisol has its place in the body, it can trigger the release of things in the body, but with caffeine triggering a higher release of cortisol, it may end up being an overload.

I may also just be rambling...

i hope it is part 2 lol

[ddawg91]

He posted a study over and MANUPDB but it was related to ergogenic and body composition effects. He has said that there is a place for it but not preworkout.

Am interested myself.

[LLLLern]

then how come every prewokout drink incleds it hmmmmmmmmm

[B-natural]

every pre-workout drink includes it because of the epi/nor-epi response and they feel it helps with hormones, and it is supposed to improve alertness and focus, and ppl like the extra boost it gives during the workout. They never really give out the negative effects, only positives assuming they outweigh the negative, which is PURELY IGNORANT, but then it could be ignorance on the consumer for not researching the product before ingesting it, either way we'll see what D has to say...

[muad33b]

I'm a little out of my league here, but I figure I'll take a stab at it and see how right/wrong my thinking is... (when D_ corrects me )

I think he's going to say that caffeine does nothing for you for burning fat (I remember reading something about this on his BB blog) and that guarana is better in the pre-workout time frame for body composition... don't know about the cortisol effect, but I do know that the "counter regulatory response" as he terms it, that I think of as a sympathetic nervous system response which occurs due to the "stress" of lifting involves both cortisol and nor/epi to go up due to the ACTH release... which I think is desired for the purposes of fat burning. Although D_ does recommend eating 2 hours prior for the purposes of controlling the catabolic effects of the sympathetic response, the idea being to burn fat and not muscle.

It sounds like the concern here is more along the lines of muscle building, which if you're on a bulk, I would think it's better to ?not? have as much of a catabolic response (e.g. eat BCAA's peri-workout) so that there's less change of muscle protein being used for gluconeogenesis.

That all being said, I'm not sure of his views on caffeine for performance enhancement... I stumbled across this article which suggests that there is evidence of increased performance, curious as to D_'s response on this:

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/6/2167

So, let's see if I'm full of shit...

[B-natural]

Another thing with cortisol, caffeine and the workout is, how much muscle do you feel someone is wasting, as I usually drink a Monster or some form of energy drink (lo carb/sugar free) and I am just curious how detrimental it is? If we are talking a couple lbs of muscle then its truly an issue, this referring to around a month timeframe.

[GotTest]

Originally Posted by B-natural

Another thing with cortisol, caffeine and the workout is, how much muscle do you feel someone is wasting, as I usually drink a Monster or some form of energy drink (lo carb/sugar free) and I am just curious how detrimental it is? If we are talking a couple lbs of muscle then its truly an issue, this referring to around a month timeframe.

I've thought about this quite a bit myself.
I always down the MONSTER myself or at least take a Vivarin before hitting the gym. I, like you, can really grind out an awesome workout, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking CORTISOL.
I'm thinking there are other factors with caffeine to consider in regards to the cortisol release. Such as muscle sparing factors.
Maybe the good outweighs the bad?

Help us out here Doc.