Your morning jolt of coffee is more than a way to start your day — coffee’s caffeine also has a positive effect on your endurance and strength, according to an analysis by a Georgia State professor.
Gordon Warren, professor of physical therapy, took a look at numerous studies dating back to 1939 that have examined the effects of caffeine on muscular strength and endurance. Warren’s analysis appears in the July edition of the American College of Sports Medicine’s flagship journal, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.
Put together, they indicate overall that caffeine appears to improve muscular strength and endurance, but the effect on strength is primarily in the knee extensor muscles and not other muscle groups. The knee extensor muscles are also known as the quadriceps or thigh muscles, which act together to extend the knee.
“In humans, caffeine is thought to affect the central nervous system to improve the ability to activate muscle,” said Warren, of the School of Health Professions in the College of Health and Human Sciences. “However, there are some indications that it could have direct effects on the muscle tissue itself.”
Most people cannot use their quadriceps to their fullest extent. On average, a person can activate 80 to 90 percent of the muscle mass, but for others, the amount of activation can be as low as 50 percent, Warren said.
“For someone who can maximally activate their quads, caffeine is not going to help, but for those who cannot, it will have an effect,” he said.
About 300 to 400 milligrams of caffeine — the amount in three to four cups of coffee — can improve muscular performance. While the overall improvement in muscular strength and endurance is only about 7 to 18 percent, this can make a difference for endurance athletes, Warren said.
“To the average person, it doesn’t sound like a lot,” he said. “But when you’re talking about elite athletes, who win and lose events in the order of seconds, 7 percent is quite a bit.”
Warren said further research is needed to determine why caffeine appears to improve strength in the quadriceps and not other muscle groups. Further investigation should also look at the mechanisms of improvement.
The article, “Effect of Caffeine Ingestion on Muscular Strength and Endurance: A Meta-Analysis,” is available online at http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/pages/default.aspx.
Archived from the Internet Wayback Machine at Two Georgia State University professors in partnership with a South African university are working to build a way to help reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among youth, as well as reducing violence in the community.
Lisa Armistead, professor and associate chair of the Department of Psychology, and Sarah Cook, associate professor of psychology, are working alongside the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town to build and examine an intervention that focuses on parent-child communication about sex and reduction of violence.
“It helps parents to communicate and to become more responsive,” Cook said. “It will help provide two-way communication about sex, HIV, gender roles and violence.”
The project is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.
On July 19, researchers will head to Langa, one of the oldest and most established black townships established under the apartheid regime that controlled South Africa for decades, to perform a baseline assessment for their research into the intervention.
The need for better communication about sex, violence and HIV/AIDS is critical for a sub-Saharan nation like South Africa. While South Africa is the most prosperous sub-Saharan nations, it has one of the highest rates of HIV. And youth are especially at risk.
Additionally, the South African government, until recently, refused to acknowledge that HIV caused AIDS, contributing to misinforming people about the disease.
“The belief was that treatments emanating from the West actually made patients sicker,” Cook said. “While denialism is present in the U.S., it really is not as big of a problem as it is in South Africa.”
Traditionally, sex education was something that parent’s didn’t do, but “aunties and uncles” would perform, Cook said. Now, parents find themselves in the position that they are the ones who must educate their children about the subject.
“One legacy of apartheid is the destruction of family structures. Conversations about sex and sexuality were not seen as a parent’s role,” Cook said. “Now, because of globalization and urbanization, families do not all live together, and there’s a gaping hole.”
The intervention consists of presentations, discussions and storytelling in a group setting, Armistead said. The six sessions will include both full group and small group discussion, with role playing and modeling included. During the second and sixth sessions, children are involved and parents can practice their skills. The groups will consist of 90 families with 10 to 12 parents in each individual group; one-half of families will receive the intervention immediately, and the other half will receive it after the follow-up assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.
Archived from the Internet Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20110401223833/http://www.gsu.edu/42383.html.
Archived to this website on: 7/24/21