Whether you choose coffee or tea, a large portion of the population starts their days with a dose of caffeine.  While there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with this, as dedicated climbers it’s worth looking at how caffeine and climbing fit together and how caffeine affects athletic performance.

To shed some light on the subject, here’s an article by Brian Rigby of Climbing Nutrition where he takes the research on caffeine and athletic performance and frames it for us with a climbing perspective.

“Yes, caffeine can help you climb harder (or run longer, or lift more, or cycle faster), but it does so only because it makes you happier and more focused and not because it directly affects the muscles or energy.”

“This leads to an important consideration: if caffeine does not improve your mood or focus—if it makes you jittery and anxious—then it’s probably not going to improve your performance, either! I say “probably” because mood, focus, jitteriness, and anxiety are not mutually exclusive; you can be generally more focused while also jittery and anxious as well. By and large, though, those who get the most benefit out of caffeine are going to be the ones who feel the best while taking it.” – Brian Rigby

As Rigby clearly states above, this article is not saying you should or should not be consuming caffeine from an athletic perspective.  Instead, he is simply suggesting that caffeine can have a positive effect on performance if and only if it makes you feel good and focused.

Rigby then goes on to suggest that the key is figuring out the effective dose that isn’t too little where you don’t feel anything and isn’t too large where you get jittery or anxious.

Caffeine Supplement Guide:

While this article is full of useful information, it is essentially Rigby’s cliff notes about caffeine.  However, if you are looking for more in depth information, be sure to check out Rigby’s Caffeine Supplement Guide.

In it Rigby delves into the actual science and research behind how caffeine can affect athletic performance.  It’s not the quickest read, but if you are looking for more information to help inform your caffeine intake decisions it’s a great place to look.

If not click through below to read Rigby’s article on how caffeine affects climbing performance.  Whether you are a daily coffee drinker or not, caffeine use is pretty widespread so it seems like a good idea to be a little more informed.

Full Article: Caffeine and Climbing

(photo courtesy of climbingnutrition.com)

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