Drinking coffee is good for your workout, new study suggests

It's difficult to keep up with the health effects of coffee, and whether it's good for us or not. But a new study has found that it is good for our exercise routines.

Bruno Gualano, a physiology professor at the University of São Paulo, put 40 male competitive cyclists into three groups.

The low caffeine group drank less than a cup of coffee per day, the moderate had around two cups and the high had three cups or more.

The cyclists were then given a caffeine pill containing about four coffees worth of caffeine, a placebo pill, or nothing at all, and asked to cycle as hard as they could until they had burned 450 calories. They each did this three times so they could test out each option.

Gualano found that almost every rider went the fastest when they had the caffeine pill – their speed averaged 3.3 per cent faster compared to no pill, and 2.2 per cent faster compared to the placebo. And this was regardless of their own everyday caffeine habits.

So maybe a quick espresso is exactly what's needed before you hit the gym?

NB. The jury is still out on the effects of covfefe

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