January 5. 2015 on a sweltering day in Perth, Australia during the Hopman Cup.
World Number 1. Serena Williams has just lost the first set to Flavia Pennetta 0-6. So, in an effort to perk herself up, she asks the umpire if she is allowed a coffee since she forgot her usual one that morning. The umpire agrees, she drinks the coffee, it works and she went on to win 6-3, 6-0.
Now to those who understand sports science there was nothing magical happening here. This is because long ago researchers at Yale University found that caffeine (found in coffee) actually helps increase your resistance to fatigue by stimulating the production of the neurotransmitter beta-endorphin. Therefore the aforementioned cup of coffee simply gave Serena’s neurotransmitters the ‘jump start’ they needed.
Furthermore caffeine has also been shown to have muscle glycogen sparing properties too. Since during long periods of exercise your body uses glycogen for fuel and when glycogen runs out, exhaustion sets in. Caffeine helps prolong your glycogen stores by encouraging your body to burn stored fat as fuel, saving the glycogen for later. This all takes place early in the exercise, according to Dr. Mark Jenkins of SportsMed Web, you may use as much as 50 percent less glycogen during the first 15 minutes. But this leaves larger stores intact for the rest of the event, delaying the point of exhaustion. Again, a possible reason why Serena was able to take the final set 6-0 when playing against a coffee-less Flavia Pennetta who’s muscle glycogen stores had not been chemically enhanced.
Finally research conducted at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada found that caffeine supplementation could ‘permit an athlete to train at a greater power output and/or to train longer by producing a more favourable ionic environment within the active muscle.’ Again, put more simply, caffeine can help an athlete’s muscles perform at a higher intensity for longer. This again explains why Serena sprung from her seat to take the final two sets. It wasn’t magic, it was just science.
So why did the mainstream media make such a big deal out of Serena’s choice of drink during her match? Well it seems the public understanding of sports nutrition is still quite far behind in terms of research. So as a quick summary, here are the three of the biggest breakthroughs in sports nutritional technology in the last few years. The next creatine if you will.
BCAA (Branch Chain Amino Acids)
Elite athletes train hard. As a result they must take additional care of their immune systems to prevent overtraining. This is because it’s accepted both through anecdotal and epidemiological evidence (the branch of medicine that studies cause of disease) that moderate, regular training can reduce the risk of infections by having a positive effect on the immune system.
Yet during periods of intense, heavy, or high volume training you can experience an ‘immune crash.’ This is where our natural killer cell activity and lymphocyte production becomes impaired and we can become ill, over train and ‘run down’.
But one supplement that’s often recommended by sports nutritionists when talking about overtraining and immune system suppression is branched chain amino acids, also known as BCAA. This is because scientists from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the University of São Paulo in Brazil set out to determine how intense long duration exercise could lead to immune suppression through a decrease in the circulating level of plasma glutamine.
To investigate immune response and BCAA supplementation, they evaluated blood parameters (lymphocyte production, the level of plasma cytokines, plasma glutamine concentration, and in vitro production of cytokines by peripheral blood lymphocytes) before and after the São Paulo International Triathlon as well as the incidence of symptoms of infections between the groups.
The data obtained showed that after intense exercise, a decrease in plasma glutamine concentration was paralleled by an increased incidence of symptoms of infections. They then found that BCAA supplementation can reverse the reduction in serum glutamine concentration observed after prolonged intense exercise such as an Olympic triathlon. The prevention of the lowering of plasma glutamine concentration allows an increased response of lymphocytes as well as an increased production of IL-1 and 2, TNF-alpha, and IFN-gamma, which is possibly linked to the lower incidence of symptoms of infection (33.84 percent) reported by the supplemented athletes.
Beta Alanine
Beta alanine has been heralded as a breakthrough for endurance athletes and quite possibly for good reason too. This is because scientists from Florida Atlantic University found beta alanine and creatine (when combined) improved the endurance and aerobic capacity of athletes after only 4 weeks of supplementation. The researchers believed it was due to beta alanine’s unique ability to positively impact a substance called carnosine in the muscles.
Carnosine is amino acid compound and interestingly a similar study at the University of Tsukuba found that high levels of carnosine could help to reduce lactic acid build up in the muscle. Put simply, this is the burning sensation you get in the muscles when you’re training hard. By buffering it (both the physiological and psychological effects) sports scientists have noted a dramatic improvement in performance across a number of endurance-based sports.
Citrulline Malate
Very little is still known about citrulline malate and we are barely scratching the surface with our understanding of it. But early studies are promising. Specifically research conducted at the Centre de Résonance Magnétique Biologique et Médicale in France found as little as 6 grams of Citrulline Malate resulted in a significant reduction in the sensation of fatigue through a 34% increase in the rate of oxidative adenosine triphosphate production during exercise and a 20% increase in the rate of phosphocreatine recovery after exercise, indicating a larger contribution of oxidative ATP synthesis to energy production (Benedahan et al. 2002).
Put more simply this just means Citrulline Malate is able to increase the body’s ability to supply the muscles with oxygen and therefore increase the regeneration of adenosine triphosphate, a molecule that is needed for the muscles to contract and work efficiently.
So there you have it. A round up the very latest innovations in sports nutritional technology. Now, in view of citrulline malate and beta alanine studies, Serena’s coffee might not seem so strange to the mainstream media.
All references for this article can be found here.
Ross Edgley is Co-Founder of THE PROTEIN WORKS, sports nutrition provider supplying everything from creatine to whey protein.