Effects of caffeine and sex on muscle performance and delayed-onset muscle soreness after exercise-induced muscle damage: a double-blind randomized trial

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate effects of caffeine ingestion and sex difference on muscle performance, delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and various biomarkers under exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD). Twenty (10 male and 10 female) healthy elite college athletes were recruited. Participants ingested either caffeine (6 mg/kg) or a placebo in a randomized, double-blind, and counterbalanced fashion at 24 and 48 h following EIMD. Muscle performance, DOMS, and blood samples were taken an hour before and an hour after supplementation. Caffeine ingestion restored impaired maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVIC: 10.2%; MVICpost: 7.2%, both P < 0.05) during EIMD across both sexes. Following caffeine ingestion during MVIC, while affected by EIMD, an interaction was found in DOMS and serum K+ (both P < 0.05), with males showing greater attenuation (21.5 and 16.9%, respectively) compared with females (4.6 and 1.3%, respectively). DOMS demonstrated an inverse correlation with MVIC after caffeine ingestion both overall and among male athletes ( r = −0.34 and −0.54, respectively; P < 0.05) but not among female athletes ( r = −0.11; P > 0.05) under EIMD. In addition, caffeine ingestion increased postexercise serum glucose and lactate concentrations across both sexes (both P < 0.05). This is the first study to show that male athletes, compared with female athletes, experience a greater reduction in DOMS during enhanced MVIC when caffeine was consumed, suggesting men might receive greater ergogenic effects from caffeine when affected by EIMD. Furthermore, caffeine ingestion was able to restore impaired muscle power among elite collegiate athletes across both sexes. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) reduces anaerobic/aerobic performance and increases delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) during exercise. We show that acute caffeine supplementation at a dosage of 6 mg/kg seems to facilitate recovery of anaerobic muscle power and attenuate DOMS after EIMD across both sexes. Furthermore, male athletes, compared with female athletes, when caffeine was prescribed, experience a greater reduction in DOMS with better restoration of impaired maximal voluntary isometric contractions. This suggests that male athletes might benefit from the ergogenic effect of acute caffeine supplementation after the onset of EIMD.

Effect of Caffeine Supplementation on Sports Performance Based on Differences Between Sexes: A Systematic Review

“…The total sample consisted of 221 participants ( n = 113 males; n = 108 females) [29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38]. All studies were performed using adult populations.…”

“…Athletes from endurance sports such as cycling, triathlon [29,32,36], and from resistance training modalities were used in the investigations [35,38]. Moreover, two trials were performed with elite collegiate athletes from several disciplines such as tennis, basketball and soccer [33,34].…”

“…The sources of caffeine supplementation were varied, including commercial drinks used by Jacobson et al (2018) [37], Tinsley et al (2017) [35], high chlorogenic coffee (Turkish coffee) used by Nieman et al (2017) [32], dry anhydrous caffeine mixed with 300 mL water and a sugar-free peach squash solution proposed by Sabblah et al (2015) [38], and caffeine gum used by Paton et al (2015) [29]. The other authors of this systematic review used capsules to administer the scheduled doses of caffeine in their studies [31,33,34,36].…”

“…In this respect, studies conducted with the general population have already shown that the stimulating effects (less drowsiness and greater activation) of caffeine are greater in men than in women [28]. Still, few studies have shown the differences in the effect of caffeine supplementation on sports performance between men and women, and their results are controversial [29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37]. While some studies have shown a comparable ergogenic effect of caffeine between sexes on sports performance, others have presented a greater effectiveness of caffeine to increase sprint power [29], isolated forehand stroke peak and average speed [37], total weight lifted [38] and a shorter time to perform a repeated modified agility test (RMAT) [30] in men compared to women.…”

Contralateral Effects by Unilateral Eccentric versus Concentric Resistance Training

“…Approximately 5 mL of venous blood was withdrawn by a standard venipuncture technique from the cubital fossa region of the arm and centrifuged for 10 min to extract plasma, and plasma samples were stored at −80°C until analyses. Plasma CK activity was assayed spectrophotometrically by an automated clinical chemistry analyzer (Model 7080; Hitachi, Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) using a commercially available test kit (10,21).…”