Caffeine reduces pain during exercise

This one is quite related to the last post but shows more confirmation for one of the theories on how caffeine improves performance during exercise... By reducing pain (of course some might argue that this may lead to an increased risk of injury by over-extending oneself).

"We've shown that caffeine reduces pain reliably, consistently during cycling, across different intensities, across different people, different characteristics. But does that reduction in pain translate into an improvement in sport performance?"

ScienceDaily article

Original article abstract

Coffee Improves Performance for Sports

From an article in the NYT today:

Starting as long ago as 1978, researchers have been publishing caffeine studies. And in study after study, they concluded that caffeine actually does improve performance. In fact, some experts, like Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky of McMaster University in Canada, are just incredulous that anyone could even ask if caffeine has a performance effect.

“There is so much data on this that it’s unbelievable,” he said. “It’s just unequivocal that caffeine improves performance. It’s been shown in well-respected labs in multiple places around the world.”

The only new questions were how it exerts its effects and how little caffeine is needed to get an effect.