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Drinking Coffee Before Your Workout – Why it’s Recommended

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Do you have a regular workout routine that you follow? If so, is there some particular food or beverage you consume just prior to your workout? We ask because it turns out that coffee might be the perfect pre-workout beverage thanks to the properties of caffeine.

Caffeine is a stimulant and, to some extent, a psychoactive drug. It is certainly not as powerful as other psychoactive substances, but caffeine still stimulates the brain and body in several ways. That could turn out to be a particularly good thing where exercise is concerned.

Benefits of Pre-Workout Coffee

Numerous studies looking into the effects of caffeine on the body suggest that drinking coffee before your workout could help you make the most of your exercise time. Here are just a few of the potential benefits of a pre-workout coffee, compliments of the Very Well Fit website:

Caffeine helps burn fat during exercise
Caffeine boosts metabolism
Caffeine boosts performance during exercise
Caffeine improves mental focus
Caffeine reduces muscle pain.

All of these properties of caffeine are believed to enhance the benefits of working out regularly. As always, the ideal scenario involves drinking your coffee black. Once you start adding sugar, creamer, and syrup to your morning cup, you might very well be negating some of the benefits of drinking the coffee to begin with.

Coffee and Working Memory

Another thing to consider is that daily exercise leads to the release of certain brain chemicals that are believed to improve what is known as working memory. Working memory is that which allows us to store and recall certain kinds of information linked to language and perception.

Another study shows that a cup of coffee is equivalent to 20 minutes of moderate exercise in terms of its benefits to the brain. It stands to reason that combining regular exercise with coffee would be even better for the brain than either one alone. So in essence, a cup of coffee before you work out only enhances the benefits of exercise for improving working memory.

That same study shows that coffee drinkers do better than their non-coffee drinking counterparts on memory tests. Moreover, the disparity between coffee drinkers and nondrinkers mirrors the disparity between people who exercise and those who do not. All of this seems to suggest that combining regular exercise with a pre-workout coffee is particularly good for working memory.

Another Reason to Love Coffee

The more we learn about the health benefits of coffee, the more we appreciate what is arguably the world’s most popular beverage. Knowing that a pre-workout coffee can improve performance is just another reason to love it.

Galaxie Coffee has been serving the greater New York area with office coffee service for many years. We would be happy to serve your workplace as well. Contact us to learn more about our coffees, juices, bottled water, and break room supplies. We even provide coffee and water equipment along with janitorial supplies.

Coffee and Exercise: Benefits of Imbibing Before You Workout

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Coffee and Exercise: Benefits of Imbibing Before You Workout

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Previous Galaxie Coffee blog posts have highlighted the health benefits of coffee. This post aims to take things one step further by discussing coffee and exercise. If you have ever found yourself questioning whether or not you should drink a cup of joe before heading to the gym, we have good news: it is probably a good idea.

It’s easy to be concerned about drinking coffee before exercise if you find that your daily dose of caffeine upsets your stomach, causes palpitations, or makes you feel shaky. But rest assured that the same caffeine characteristics known to cause such issues can actually boost your workout.

Below are some of the benefits of drinking coffee just prior to working out. Bear in mind that caffeine can stay in your system for up to six hours after you consume it. Drinking coffee before a workout might be influenced by the actual time of day you exercise.

1. Better Physical Performance

Caffeine is a stimulant that affects everything from your heart to your central nervous system. That is why you feel that sudden burst of energy with your morning cup of coffee. As the caffeine stimulates your nervous system, you’ll have more energy to push through the most difficult part of your workout.

There is also reason to believe that caffeine may suppress the feelings of exertion we all experience during physical activity. In other words, you will perform better because you will not feel like you are working so hard. This could lead to more productive workouts over the long term.

2. More Efficient Calorie Burning

There is some scientific evidence supporting the idea that caffeine makes for more efficient calorie burning. Applied during and after exercise, the science suggests that drinking coffee before your workout will help your body burn more calories. Coffee could very well make it easier for you to employ moderate exercise as a means of weight management.

The one caveat to this benefit is that you do not rely exclusively on exercise and high volumes of caffeine to manage your weight. Effective weight management requires that you also change your diet. By combining moderate exercise and good eating habits over the long term, you will be more successful controlling your weight.

3. You Might Enjoy Exercising

Finally, caffeine encourages the production of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. One of them is dopamine, a chemical your body releases when you are experiencing feelings of pleasure. The research suggests that drinking coffee prior to a workout might actually make exercise more enjoyable. That’s right, you might actually enjoy getting hot, sweaty, and worn down.

Now that you know that caffeine could actually be good for your workouts, there is no longer a need to worry about drinking a cup of coffee on your way to the gym. And while we’re at it, you can enjoy the same benefits at work as well. We can make it happen by delivering high-quality coffee products and other beverages direct to your office.