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I've always thought it odd that in orienteering, a typically race weekend or multi-day event involves something grueling every day, if not twice a day. If this were skiing, few skiers would think its a good idea to race twice the day before doing a race that was expected to take 90 minutes the next morning - think a middle + sprint on Saturday and long on Sunday. That's like skiing a 15k, followed by a 5k, followed by a 30k the next morning. In the days before "mini-tours" were en vogue en skiing, I bet half the field would blow off at least one or both of the Saturday races to do the Sunday race or vice versa.
Yet, most orienteers would feel cheated if they didn't get to race that much in one weekend. And don't get me started on training! Every session seems to be blasting at top speed. So, since orienteers don't seem to be quick on change (as I think the state of fashion in our sport attests), I'm going to have to deal with this unusually high demand of racing in short periods of time. And it might be best if I learn some things about how to handle it just a bit better, with this study:
"The Effect of Adding Caffeine to Postexercise Carbohydrate Feeding on Subsequent High-Intensity Interval-Running Capacity Compared With Carbohydrate Alone" by Conor Taylor, Daniel Higham, Graeme L. Close, and James P. Morton, International Journal of Sport Nutition and Exercise Metabolism, 2011, 21, pp. 410-416.
If I remember rightly from my phys ed degree, the idea behind ingesting caffeine pre-race is that it speeds the metabolism of fats. Fat, as opposed to carbohydrate, metabolizes slower, but provides more energy. So, if you can burn fat faster, you'll get more energy gradually over a longer period of time, and probably get a sweet six-pack (okay, two out of three).
This study, however, looked at adding caffeine to one's post exercise re-fueling, in particular, after a high-intensity running session, and its effect on running capacity on another high-intensity session four hours later. The participants did the test protocol three seperate times, once consuming a liquid with just carbohydrate, once with carbs and caffeine, and once with flavoured water (Volvic, not tasty). They would do one test to volitional vatigue, then rest for four hours, consuming the drink four times during that period, at 5, 60, 120, and 180 minutes after. Then they did an exercise capactity test, the beep test, which, if you've never done, is a ton of fun. Seriously, a blast.
They measured several things, though I'd say only two measures had significant differences, as shown in this graph:
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| Charts make everything look more science-y. |
The most important result is that there was clearly improved performance when consuming carbohydrates and caffeine against just carbs and just water. Like, the differences were huge. An average of 32 minutes to exhaustion versus 48? That's a 50% gain in exercise capacity. Clearly consuming some caffeine had an effect on exercise capacity. In the discussion, the authors refer to another study they say agrees with their findings with some more data: "Pedersen et al. used a feeding protocol similar to that adopted here ... At the end of the 4-hr recovery period, total glycogen resynthesis was therefore 80 mmol/kg greater in the CHO+CAF trial than in the CHO-only condition." Essentially, the body created more fuel during the recovery period with some caffeine.
The authors go into several other theories that could explain how, physiologically, caffeine impacts the body to cause this increase, which I won't go into here. I highly encourage anyone to read this paper for that discussion (its pretty brief, but interesting).
The other notable result related to the ingestion of caffeine was the rate of gastrointestinal discomfort, which, does not paint a pretty picture for caffeine, or carbs, for that matter. As the chart showed, the discomfort was significantly higher as the test went on. This should be a huge red flag to those people who have sensitive stomach.
So, how can we apply this to orienteering?
Firstly, remember that this measure exercise capacity. So, if you're sprinting in the afternoon after a middle in the morning, it may not make you any faster. However, it could potentially make you slow down less. Or, it could make you feel less fatigued from the morning's effort as those last 5-10 minutes of the sprint wears on. This could stave off the feeling of being really stupid near the end of the race, something I think we've all experienced at some time.
I would also think that if you have a longer event in the afternoon, perhaps a relay, or even a middle or a chasing start, it could have a significant impact there. Simply being able to better recover from the morning's effort and sustain a level of effort for longer.
It would also apply to the training camp scenario. Given they seem to be 5-6 sessions in a day, consuming some caffeine after the first workout could very well make those afternoon workouts more productive.
Caffeine or not, though, its clear that even just consuming some carbs post-workout is very important.
How much caffeine????
Okay, sorry, this probably got you all excited. Huge exercise capacity gains? How can I lose? Well, in this study, the subjects consumed 8mg/kg body mass. For me, that'll mean 680mg of caffeine, which, quite frankly, is INSANE.
As a point of reference, a red bull has 320 mg per litre of caffeine. I'd have to drink over two litres of redbull. Alternatively, I could drink around 7 litres of Coke, take 7 caffeine tablets, consume 20 Gu Roctanes, eat 65 Hershey's chocolate bars, or have a third of a litre of espresso.
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| I don't understand why my map won't come into focus. |
I hate to leave on such a non-cheery note, though, so watch this instead. I can promise you that I have heard almost all of these at one point:
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