EndurElite Chief Endurance Officer Matt Mosman addresses the question if endurance athletes can build a tolerance to caffeine.
Video Transcription:
Good afternoon, my endurance studs and studettes. Matt Mosman, Chief Endurance Officer at EndurElite, the maker of premium supplements for endurance athletes, and endurance training, and supplement expert.
Can Athletes Build A Tolerance To Caffeine?
Today, we're just gonna jump right to it, and get to the topic I'm gonna talk about. I received a question on Facebook, yesterday, by a guy, named, John who, pretty much, could crush me on the bike on Strava, but I think I can get him in running. But, John asked, "Can you build up a tolerance to caffeine?" Now, I could be like every other supplement industry guy and say, you know, just basically lie to your face and say, "Nah, you'll never build up a tolerance to caffeine. It'll always work. It'll always have the same effects." But I was always told, when you lie, you make the Baby Jesus cry. And being the Christmas season, I am not gonna do that.
Do all people develop a caffeine tolerance?
So, can you build a tolerance to caffeine? It's, kind of, a confusing answer. The answer is yes, no, maybe. Honestly, the research is a little bit conflicted, when it comes to caffeine and tolerance. So, basically, there are three types of people, when it comes to caffeine. First, the people who can take caffeine day in and day out and never develop a tolerance to it, and get nice performance-enhancing effects when they're running or riding every day. The second type of person is people who can take caffeine for a while, and they will eventually build up a tolerance to it. And the third part, and it sucks to be you, is there are some caffeine non-responders. Literally, these people could take 1,000 milligrams of caffeine, and it would put them to sleep. It doesn't work.
How to avoid caffeine tolerance
So, the solution to this, you know, if you're one of those people where caffeine works day in and day out, just stick to that three to six milligrams per kilogram body weight, like we've talked about in previous videos.
How to reset caffeine tolerance
If you are one of those people who developed a tolerance over time, there's a couple things you can do. One, you can up your caffeine dosage by 25 to 50 milligrams, and see if that has an effect. The second option, and probably the better one, is, if you feel yourself building a tolerance to caffeine, you can cut it out for about three to five days. And the research shows that, after that period of abstinence, that the effects of caffeine should come back.
Some Athletes Don't Respond To Caffeine At All
Now, if you're one of those unlucky individuals who, you know, doesn't respond to caffeine, you know, at all, I mean there's other solutions for you that you can still get some nice performance-enhancing benefits from other ingredients. But, as a whole, and for the majority of endurance athletes, caffeine is gonna work really, really well, like I said, to improve time to exhaustion, time to fatigue, make a harder exercise seem easier, increase focus, reaction time, things of that nature.
Now, going back to, you know, those people where caffeine doesn't work. Let's just take, PerformElite, for example. Yes, PerformElite has caffeine in it. It has about 215 milligrams of two forms of caffeine. You have straight Caffeine Anhydrous, and then you have another one called PurEnergy, which is more of an extended-release caffeine. But, in addition to that, you have nine other performance-enhancing ingredients, to mention a few, the Beet Root, the Beta-alanine, the ElevATP that can enhance endurance performance outside of the caffeine. I'm gonna drop a little secret here too. For those of you who are non-responders to caffeine, maybe, you know, you're one of those endurance athletes that doesn't like stimulants in your pre-workout. You know, that's fine. I totally get it. We will be releasing a non-stimulant version of PerformElite in 2018, where we'll be removing the Caffeine Anhydrous and the PurEnergy, and putting a pretty cool ingredient in there, called TeaCrine.
So, fear not, caffeine non-responders. We gotcha covered. Like I said, with the original PerformElite formula, you have those nine other ingredients that can really increase endurance performance, that's if you don't get any, kind of, effect from caffeine. And then, for all you non-stim people, there will be a different formula coming out in the near future that will have all the stimulants removed, and in place of it have TeaCrine.
So to, kinda, conclude, you know, I understand that some supplements aren't gonna work for some people, while it's gonna work for others. I'm never gonna tell you that, you know, every single ingredient out there works because, besides caffeine, I mean, there's a ton of other ingredients people won't respond to. Like Creatine, for example, you have your responders and non-responders. But what I always do, and especially with PerformElite, is I always offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. So, in the event that you get it, you know, it's not working...you know, it will work for the majority of the people. If it doesn't work, hey, no problem. You know, we tried, it didn't work. You send it back. I refund your money. So, no risk, no obligation there.
All right, my endurance friends, that's all I have for today. Until next time, stay fueled, stay focused, stay fast.
