If you’ve ever served in the military, or had a work week that demanded crazy hours from you, you’ve probably run out of time in the day to get what you want/need to get done outside of your work hours. I’ve been guilty of it, and over the years I had to find a way to navigate sleep deprivation before my body forced me to rest.
So many of us take sleep for granted – we count hours and minutes like we do money, seeing where we can spend it and sometimes ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ to cover things, making sure we get stuff done during the day at the sacrifice of sleep.
Sure, we say to ourselves “I’ll just do this today and then rest up tomorrow” – but let’s be honest, that rarely ever happens.
We pay for the sleep we skip with fatigue, and so we think “no problem, I’ll just get some coffee/have an energy drink/pop some caffeine tabs,” to override our bodies safety shut down mechanism. And it works, switching on our nervous system to suppress the effects of sleep deprivation, if only temporarily.
We count on this to jump start our system because after a long day, we still need to hit the gym (even though we know our workouts will suck – but then we’re taught to ’embrace the suck’).
There’s a problem with all this though – science has long discovered caffeine might not be the cure all performance booster it claims to be; so why is that, and what is?
Let’s find out why.
Workout Nutrition DIY: THIS is Better Than Caffeine for Workouts.
Scientists conducted a study enlisting 10 non-professional lifters in their 20s who volunteered in a double blind randomized study. The lifters got split into 3 groups and given a caffeine dose of 6 mg per kilo of body weight, 3 mg per kilo of body weight, or a placebo.
For context, for a guy that weighs in at around 200 lbs., that’s roughly 272 mg of caffeine on the low end and 544 mg on the high end.
The lifters did knee extensions and bicep curls while the scientists measured their isokinetic concentric and eccentric strength at 60 and 180 degrees.
The result was, caffeine, at either dosage, made no difference to maximal voluntary concentric or eccentric strength of the elbow flexors. Additionally, it had no effect on the eccentric strength of the knee flexors either.
However, both dosages of caffeine created a significant rise in peak concentric force of the knee extensors at 180 degrees, with the bigger dosage causing an increase in peak concentric force during multiple reps (i.e. repeated contractions).
Breaking it Down
The study concluded that caffeine more than likely doesn’t help upper body performance or strength, but it does seem to help muscular strength in the lower body. What this means then is that if the findings in this study are correct, caffeine may not be the cure all stimulant when it comes to weight lifting (even though it did seem to work for lower body exercises).
The key factor missing in this study though, is none of the participants were sleep deprived. Which makes us question – would caffeine’s benefits be more pronounced, potentially leading to increases in upper and lower body strength in lifters that hadn’t gotten enough sleep? Maybe – but there are supplements out there that might be more effective than caffeine.
Counter Sleep Deprivation with These Instead
In another study, Japanese scientists discovered that chronically sleep-deprived men who took 100 mg of magnesium every day for a month could perform as if they weren’t exhausted. When I say sleep deprived, I mean guys who only got 40% of their normal sleep time. With magnesium, their anaerobic power and strength were completely unaffected by their sleep deprivation.
It’s common knowledge being sleep deprived lowers magnesium levels, and conversely, a lack of sleep increases levels of norepinephrine (a vasoconstrictor), which is a close chemical cousin of adrenaline.
Magnesium on the other hand, is a strong vasodilator (allows blood vessels to open), meaning it has the potential to counter norepinephrine’s blood vessel constricting effects; it can also help regulate your levels of norepinephrine. That probably explains (or partly explains) why magnesium has an effect on exercise performance with sleep deprived lifters.
Here’s where it gets more interesting – creatine, while not a stimulant, may be an even better solution for sleep deprivation. Magnesium seems like it requires preemptive, continuous doses to combat fatigue (for example, taking nightly doses of ZMA), whereas a 5 or 10 gram dose of creatine 1.5 hours before your workout can restore your workout performance.
As a side note, I still recommend cycling creatine like I mentioned a while back.
The line of logic is that creatine has the ability to replenish high energy phosphates in your brain that are diminished by sleep, thus restoring your central nervous system’s (CNS) power.
The Take Home Message
While the study on caffeine seemed to show that a high dose of caffeine or a couple shots of espresso may improve your lower body workout performance but not necessarily upper body performance, it doesn’t specify if this helps sleep deprived lifters through their workouts.
Regardless, it’d be willful ignorance to say that caffeine doesn’t kick start the CNS and improve your overall athletic performance. Remember though, caffeine is a vasoconstrictor – meaning blood can’t flow as efficiently through blood vessels when they’re being choked out by caffeine. Side note: it’s one of the reasons why I stopped using energy drinks and coffee to fuel my workouts in my early days of lifting.
What might be better though, is keeping your magnesium and creatine levels topped up everyday, in a specific way. Aim for 100 mg of magnesium 30 minutes before sleep (this is the best type of magnesium to take), paired with 5 or 10 grams of creatine 90 minutes before your workout, and you may just find it’s a worthy alternative for combating sleep deprivation to ensure your exercise performance stays optimal.
That’s all folks.
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References
Brilla, L.R. and Conte, V. 2000. Effects of a Novel Zinc-Magnesium Formulation on Hormones and Strength. Journal of Exercise Physiology Online. 3(4), pp. 26-36. Available from: https://www.asep.org/asep/asep/BrillaV2.PDF
Chen Yang, Zhu Daoping, Xiong Xiaoping, Liu Jing & Zhang Chenglong. 2020. Magnesium oil enriched transdermal nanogel of methotrexate for improved arthritic joint mobility, repair, and reduced inflammation. Journal of Microencapsulation. 37(1), pp. 77-90. Available from https://doi.org/10.1080/02652048.2019.1694086
Kalman, D. 2012. The Research Process: The Case of the Negative Research Study. Neutraceuticals World. Available from: https://www.nutraceuticalsworld.com/issues/2012-12/view_columns/the-research-process-the-case-of-the-negative-research-study/
Tanabe, K. et al. 1998. Efficacy of Oral Magnesium Administration on Decreased Exercise Tolerance in a State of Chronic Sleep Deprivation. Japanese Circulation Journal. 62(5), pp. 341-346. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1253/jcj.62.341
Tallis, J., Yavuz, H.C.M. 2017. The Effects of Low and Moderate Dose Caffeine Supplementation on Upper and Lower Body Maximal Voluntary Concentric and Eccentric Muscle Force. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. 43(3), pp. 274-281. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2017-0370
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