Most people who workout in the morning still need some coffee before they start work. A common side-effect of working out in the morning is some grogginess when work starts. To combat this, having a quick cup of coffee before leaving the house can help keep you mentally present. But will that coffee have negative effects on the workout you just had? You already spent an hour with your adrenaline pumping, so drinking coffee might seem counter intuitive. Let’s discuss why coffee after a workout is okay and how to ensure it does not interfere with your progress.
Drinking coffee after your workout is perfectly fine as long as it’s prepared well. An ill-prepared coffee can interfere with your workout recovery, which can make your workout virtually pointless. The best way to avoid this is to wait an hour after your workout, use water to dilute the caffeine, and have that coffee with a meal, to ensure that the coffee won’t effect your recovery.
How Coffee Effects Recovery
The main way coffee and other stimulants effect recovery is by altering the work/rest balance of the nervous system.
The Work/Rest States of the Body
The central nervous system governs bodily processes depending on what state it’s in. The two general CNS state are the sympathetic (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic (rest and recovery).
The sympathetic state is considered the work state, or more commonly as the “fight or flight” state. When enough stress effects the body, it will enter the sympathetic state to better deal with the “threat.” Heart rate and blood pressure increase, muscle are more prepared for fast movement, and sweat starts to come more easily. This is the state we enter during our workout, and thanks to the sympathetic system, the body is able to put out a lot of energy into a single hour of training.
The parasympathetic state is considered the resting state, or “rest and recover.” This is the complete opposite of the sympathetic since the body tries to relax and recuperate after the stress it dealt with earlier. In exercise, this is the time spent outside of the gym where your muscles get repaired and your metabolism kicks up to burn fat. In fact, without this recovery state, our workouts would be useless. All the benefits of exercise come from the recovery process rather than the workout itself.
Effect of Coffee on Recovery
Coffee interferes with recovery because too many stimulants can pull the body out of the parasympathetic and into the sympathetic state. Reducing time spent in recovery will make it so less muscle is repaired and built as well as less metabolism boosting for fat loss. You know you’ve brought yourself out of the parasympathetic state when you get jittery and anxious after coffee.
However, this is only the case with too much caffeine at once. If handled in the right way, you can gain the mental boost from coffee without pulling yourself completely out of your recovery mode.
3 Ways to Drink Coffee Without Ruining Recovery
Dilute the Caffeine
Diluting the caffeine with water or milk makes it so you don’t get a ton of caffeine at once. Instead, you can sip your coffee throughout the day for small bursts of caffeine. The best option for this would be an iced americano: a shot of espresso with water. The espresso provides the caffeine of course, and the ice water will help replenish all the you’ve sweated out during the workout. Other good options include a latte, cappuccino, or other mixed coffee drinks. Energy drinks like red bull might appear similar, but because they pack more caffeine than a shot of espresso, they might interfere with recovery.
Wait An Hour Post-Workout
The body is much more sensitive to caffeine during the sympathetic (workout) state, so having caffeine immediately post-workout will keep you overly hyped for too long. This sounds like a plus, but remember that you’re likely not having post-workout coffee for physically energy; you’re having it for mental energy. Being overly energized coming into work will make it harder to focus. To avoid this, wait at least an hour for your body to slowly transition to the parasympathetic (recovery) state before having coffee. This will ensure that you’re mentally ready for the day without completely exiting your recovery state.
Have a Meal With the Coffee
Similar to diluting coffee in water, having a meal with will ensure that your gut doesn’t absorb all the caffeine at once. The best post-workout nutrient you can choose is protein for two reasons. First, it aids in recovery by releasing parasympathetic hormones like insulin. Second, most people who exercise under eat protein, which is essential for muscle building and fat burning. To find out how much protein you need when exercising, and the other hidden benefits, read the article here.
Are you Overtraining?
Chronic Tiredness – A sign of Overtraining
Do you find yourself needing a cup of coffee after every workout? This could be a sign of overtraining. Overtraining occurs when you’re body goes through more stress than it does recovery. The obvious example would be someone who works out every single day at super high intensity. They’re beating their body up without giving it a chance to repair and grow, which puts all that time and effort to waste.
Less obvious examples of overtraining include balancing an intense 3 day a week workout routine with a highly demanding job. People who don’t train many days a week make up for it by training at high intensity. Although it’s true you can get away with higher intensity if you’re working out only 3 times a week, you have to consider the stress from every other part of life. A demanding job may have you working long hours, deal with a lot of stressful responsibility, and can interfere with your sleep schedule. In this case, it’s still possible to overtrain since the body stays in the sympathetic state both in the gym and at work.
Determining whether or not you’re overtraining can be complicated. To see find out if you’re tiredness is caused by overtraining, check out our article on the signs of overtraining and how to fix it.