The Effect Of Caffeine On Endurance Performance In College Students Majoring In Physical Education

Objective: The effect of caffeine on endurance performance and the effect of caffeine on exerc ise fatigue and cardiopulmonary function were studied under the caffeine ingestion condition or noncaffeine condition.Methods: The experiment was designed with double blind and random crossover experiment.From Shenyang Institute of Physical Education,12 male college students(age,84.69y;height,181.15 ± 6.31cm;weight,74.82 ± 6.29kg)volunteered to participate in the experiment.12 subjects were tested for speed endurance and strength endurance under non-caffeine conditions or caffeine conditions(6mg/kg).Caffeine was took 1 hour ago before the beginning of every test.The cycling exercise was chosen to test the speed-endurance,after the end of the experiment,time-to-exhaustion,maximal output,rating of perceived exertion(RPE),oxygen uptake,heart rate and RER were continuously measured and monitored during the trial.The BRUMS questionnaire,simple reaction time and selection reaction were measured before and after the exercise.The strength-endurance test used a bench method to measure upper limb strength,recording the average muscle endurance and maximal muscular endurance during the push and pull down process.Results: Compared with non-caffeine condition,subjects had a significant improvement in the time-to-exhaustion and maximal output values of caffeine treated group(Time 781±145s vs 846±150s,P< 0.01;Maximal Output 240±25w vs 253±26w,P<0.05).In the bench press test,the average muscle-endurance values had a significant improvement in the caffeine treated group compared with the non-caffeine condition(push average muscle-endurance value: from 127±34ft-lb to 163±41ft-lb,P<0.01;pull average muscle-endurance value: from 210±57ft-lb to 262±86ft-lb,P<0.05);the maximal muscle-endurance values also had a significant improvement in the caffeine treated group when compared with the non-caffeine condition(push maximal muscle-endurance value: from 193±32ft-lb to 195±49ft-lb,P>0.05;pull maximal muscle-endurance value: from 291±65ft-lb to 322±91ft-lb,P<0.01).The rating of perceived exertion significantly decreased in caffeine treated group compared with non-caffeine condition(from 14.04±6.25 to 13.04±6.12,P<0.01).The BRUMS questionnaire revealed a significant decrease in vigor value(from-12±6.07 vs-18±5.81,P<0.05)in caffeine condition compared with non-caffeine condition.However,no significant differences between caffeine condition and non-caffeine conditions were found in the values of maximal oxygen uptake,maximal heart rate and RER during the test(P>0.05).Simple reaction time and selection reaction time had no significant changes before and after exercise(P>0.05).Conclusions:(1)Caffeine can improve the endurance performance of college students majoring in physical education;(2)Caffeine can delay the subjective fatigue in the course of exercise,but caffeine has little effect on the changes of mood and nerve reaction before and after exercise,and caffeine has no effect on the changes of the cardiopulmonary function in the exercise process.