Does Caffeine Improve Sports Agility?

Athletes are always looking to gain an edge over others, legal or not. Popular methods today among athletes is creatine, protein shakes, and caffeine.

As a high school athlete, I was looking for an edge for a track meet. I did some reading and everything (very outdated) said caffeine wouldn't help sprinters. I didn't agree, figuring my reaction time should improve. On the way to a regional track meet, I stopped and got some coffee. I had never drank it before. And my drink was awful. I hated it, and I spilled it all over myself. What was meant to give me an advantage turned out to nearly eliminate me from the race from the burns!

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Products like Red Bull and Monster are being gulped down like it's water by many young athletes. How much caffeine is really in these products (per 8 ounces)? One night I couldn't sleep from probably too much caffeine, so I decided to research how much is in certain drinks.

Pepsi 25mg
Diet Pepsi 24 mg
Coke 25mg
Diet Coke 31 mg
Barqs Root Beer 15 mg
Mellow Yellow 31mg
Vault 46mg
Full throttle 72mg
Mt dew 37mg
Mt Dew Code Red 37mg
Amp 71 mg
Mt Dew MDX 47mg
Coffee (drip) 104-192mg
Red Bull 80mg
Monster ???(in a blend of other ingredients)
Vivarin (tablets) 200 mg

So does caffeine enhance performance? Here is a research abstract from late 2006:

Title: The effects of caffeine on athletic agility

JOURNAL OF STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING RESEARCH 20 (4): 851-854 NOV 2006

Abstract: Caffeine has been shown to improve sprint time, anaerobic power, and reaction time, all integral aspects of agility. The purpose of this study was to determine whether an acute caffeine dose would enhance agility and anaerobic power. Sixteen subjects participated in a randomized, double-blind experiment and performed the proagility run and the 30-second Wingate test 60 minutes after ingestion of caffeine (6 mg.kg(-1)) or placebo. No significant change was observed in the proagility run after caffeine ingestion compared with placebo. Also, no significant change was observed in peak power, mean power, or percent power decrease. Agility is an integral component of athletic skill and any reasonable method for enhancing agility would benefit active individuals. However, results from this study indicate that a 6 mg.kg(-1) dose of caffeine does not impact agility as measured by the proagility run test or power output as measured by the 30-second Wingate test in recreationally active young adult males who are not habituated to caffeine.

Interpretation: First, a 70kg person (154 lbs) would have ingested 420 mg, or close to 5 Red Bulls! But for agility, there was no benefit. Bottom line, if you can't change direction, caffeine won't help!

But wait, isn't caffeine illegal in Olympic sports? In 2004, it was removed from the banned substance list. Why? Well it would take more than 12 micrograms of caffeine per millimeter in your urine to be considered illegal. That equals out to about 5-6 cups of coffee right before the event!
(click the link for the reference)
http://www.usms.org/fitness/articleofthemonth.php?a=131

BEWARE!!! Don't let caffeine be your answer for lack of sleep. You will crash, and still need sleep! I'll have more on the FAQs of sleep soon!

Does Caffeine Improve Sports Agility?

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Improve Your Credit Score In 12 Steps

Improve Your Credit Score

Do you know how to improve your credit score? Banks and financial institutions use your score usually to assess how creditworthy you are and how much interest to charge you.

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Other institutions now also rely on this information. Insurance companies, prospective employers, and even your landlord now refer to your credit scores to determine how much to charge you, or even if they'll do business with you at all.

If you want to improve your credit score, you need to know that there are a number of ways your score is calculated. The FICO score was created by Fair Isaac, a company that specializes in providing risk management and credit scoring data analysis. It is the most commonly used system.

A fairly new system, called the Vantage score, was developed by three credit reporting bureaus. The procedure by which your score is determined differs between these two systems, but the concepts are fundamentally the same.

With such great importance attached to it, it's fairly obvious that you need to take very good care of your financial information. But what do you need to do to improve your credit score?

Since football season is now under way, let's break it down, quarter by quarter.

First Quarter - Pace Yourself

1. Be on time with your loan payments.

2. If you do slip behind on some of the payments, you need to catch up with all past due accounts. This is probably the toughest part, but it's extremely important. One of the important components of calculating your FICO score is the ratio of the total amount of dollars you've borrowed over the amount of dollars in credit you have available.

3. Use only up to 35 percent of your credit limit. For example, if you have a credit card with a credit limit of ten thousand dollars, you need to make sure your balance owed is no greater than 3,500 dollars. And you'll need to do this two to three months before you go into a loan transaction.

Second Quarter - Go For 2

4. Don't throw away old credit cards. As explained previously, your credit score is determined in large part by the amount of credit available to you. If you've started getting rid of your old accounts, then at least keep a few of them active.

5. Maintain a healthy mix of installment, revolving and new accounts. Installment accounts include property mortgages and car loans. Your credit cards are examples of your revolving account. New accounts are loan or credit accounts opened within the last year.

6. Confirm that your credit card limits are being accurately reported to the relevant credit bureaus. If your limits aren't being reported, and your balances are high, it will appear as if you're maxed out and this will affect your score.

Third Quarter - Credit Bureaus Are Your Linemen

7. Make sure your "good" credit is being reported accurately to all the credit bureaus.

8. Make sure your home equity line of credit (HELOC) is being reported to the credit bureaus as a mortgage or an installment account. Credit bureaus may automatically report home equity line of credit as revolving debt and so this falls under the same rule as credit cards. If this is the case you'll need to write a formal letter to the credit bureau asking them to change the rating on the account.

9. If you have had a bankruptcy reported in your credit rating, make sure that the items declared in the bankruptcy are reported with a zero balance. Doing this can earn you extra points on your credit score.

Fourth Quarter - Don't Let Up

10. If you spot any inaccuracies in your credit record you need to get these corrected quickly. Prepare a letter requesting for the correction to be made then send it along with any documentary evidence via overnight certified delivery to the credit bureau reporting the inaccurate information. This is the fastest way to get a response.

11. If you do not need to enclose any documentary evidence, you can go visit the website of the credit bureau concerned and file your dispute online.

12. If your parents or relatives have good credit, you can ask to "piggy-back" off their credit rating. Just have them add you as an extra user on their credit card account. Your score will instantly get a boost from this. Take extra care with this action, though. Many people have abused this loophole and credit companies are beginning to crack down.

Improve Your Credit Score - Ounce by Ounce Equals Yard by Yard

There's a saying about an ounce of prevention being better than a pound of cure, and the same goes for improving your credit score. If you don't want to go through all the trouble and stress of repairing and improving your credit score in the first place, then take good care of it and don't fall into any of the traps that will damage your credit rating.

Improve Your Credit Score In 12 Steps

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