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Expand your running knowledge, identify running misconceptions and become a faster, healthier, SMARTER runner. Let Brodie Sharpe become your new running guide as he teaches you powerful injury insights from his many years as a physiotherapist while also interviewing the best running gurus in the world. This is ideal for injured runners & runners looking for injury prevention and elevated performance. So, take full advantage by starting at season 1 where Brodie teaches you THE TOP PRINCIPLES TO OVERCOME ANY RUNNING INJURY and let’s begin your run smarter journey.
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On today's episode, the best caffeine strategy to run faster with David Hellard. Welcome to the only podcast delivering and deciphering the latest running research to help you run smarter. My name is Brodie. I'm an online physiotherapist treating runners all over the world, but I'm also an advert runner who just like you have been through vicious injury cycles and when searching for answers struggled to decipher between common run... myths and real evidence-based guidance. But this podcast is changing that. So join me as a run smarter scholar and raise your running IQ so we can break through the injury cycles and achieve running feats you never thought possible. Welcome back, Run Smarter Scholars. I have no idea why I've gone through 350 odd podcast episodes and not done one on caffeine, but this episode seemed to be very timely. We had David Hallard, who is the founder of Caffeine Bullet. His team reached out to me several weeks ago, wanting to send me some of their chews, their caffeine chews that they have. And I was interested because prior to that, a couple of weeks prior to that, I had a genetic test done and had my genome type and sequencing and that sort of stuff. And it came back that they, um, as a, I guess, a super responder to caffeine and for one who doesn't really take caffeine or gravitate towards it at all in my life, um, started thinking that maybe there might be some sort of advantage to taking on board this genetic predisposition that I have and maybe advantageous to performances. I've got a high rocks race coming up. I just bought tickets for my second high rocks ever. I bought them last night and the race is in December. So back into training. And yes, after speaking to David, looking to the literature myself, it's definitely going to be something that I'll test out in my training. And then if goes well, we'll definitely try out in my races. But as we speak with David, you'll learn how to use not just these caffeine bullet use caffeine in any form, that being coffee or gels or some, you know, products that they caffeine products that they do have. What the best dosage to use the timing. We'll talk about this genetic genome and how to take advantage of that and how to know if you are on one camp or another. And yeah, David was great to have on. He is also the host of Bad Boy Running. If you're recognizing the voice, especially if you're in the UK and listening to that podcast. Um, but he also has a great, uh, history of running endurance, running ultra running and, um, some top performances as well. He actually pitched caffeine bullet on dragons den, which is like one of my favorite shows of all time. And so as soon as I recognize that I went onto YouTube and watched him and his pitch and he actually got two dragons to invest. One of those dragons being Stephen Bartlett, which is who is the host of Diary of a CEO podcast, which I've been listening to for several months now. And absolutely loving it's become one of my favorite podcasts. So, uh, you know, this is all come to a head. It's all seem to be very timely with the podcast and like my general interests and where that's gravitating towards. And then David coming on for this interview. So, uh, works out really well. If you are interested after listening to this episode in. caffeine in these caffeine chews in caffeine bullet, the product. David and his team have been grateful enough to give us a 20% discount. So you can go to the link in the show notes, or you can type in code run smarter, all caps into their products. But I think it might just be easier to go to the link that I'll include in the show notes, but that gives you 20% off the, across the line for their products. So. a great discount thanks to his team for doing that. And I've tried them myself. Like I said, the team have sent me some of these caffeine chews and they're very good. I'm not entirely sure how I'll go chewing them once I am at like full gas or like going hard during a race. That's why I'll test it out in my training in the next couple of months. But yeah, in terms of the flavors and how easy it is to digest and absorb and that sort of stuff, I really enjoy it. And so without further ado, let's dive into the best. caffeine strategy for you so you can run faster. Let's take it away. David Hallard. Thank you very much for joining me on the podcast. Oh, my absolute pleasure. Um, great to be here and hello Australia and the rest of the world. I, uh, want to introduce you for people who aren't familiar. So, uh, would you, I know you've got a lot going on, both like from a athletic point of view, from a business point of view. So if people aren't familiar with you, can you bring people up to speed? Yeah, so I love running. I'm all about running. I was a reasonable runner when I was younger. Grew up in the obstacle race boom. So was teammates with athletes like John Alban, who's now what, five times world champion, trail world champion. Managed to use my lesser talent to just win some fun races. Awesome, you know, reasonable races like, but random ones like the Somaliland Marathon. where Mo Farah's from and the champion there and the Bagan Marathon and a few auctions and stuff. But then started my own podcast, Bubble Running in 2015, which is all about the stories of running rather than necessarily focused on the minutiae of getting better. And then since then have launched my own caffeine business that's now a performance business called become the voice and the face of the, the Golden Trail World Series. So I do the, the presenting online, um, or for Eurosport, which goes out to, I don't know which channel it is in Australia, but it goes to a hundred channels worldwide and, and so I now go on tour with all the athletes of the Golden Trail each year and kind of reports from what they're doing, but also it, I mean, it's, it sounds super cheesy to say, but it is one big family. So, so I now would. of an elder statesman in the tour, so see myself as an advisory role in some ways, because you're actually, you're on tour with people who are, some of them incredibly young, as a man in their 40s, I could say that, people in their early 20s, or actually athletes who have come from incredibly simple or sheltered worlds, and so they're suddenly touring the world. They've never been to an airport before. They... You know, never eaten food that isn't local food. And suddenly they're having to perform at the highest level in a new location, at altitude and in unknown surroundings at weird times of the day. So it's, um, that's, that's just one of those jobs that is an absolute dream job that I pinch myself every day. And while I'd like to say there's, you know, it's because of my great, great talent that I've got there. There's a huge amount of luck in me getting that position. And I, you know, I know it, I know it. Where did the caffeine or the interest in caffeine come about? Was it like something that you had troubles with in the past or just found a gap in the market or any particular interest? Well, yeah, I guess both. So when I used to race and I've been racing since maybe 2008 or so. And so even back then You had gels, but they're pretty dreadful. And caffeine gels weren't that common, but also weren't necessarily very good either. Uh, but I found the point in a race when I needed a gel, a caffeine gel was often the point that my stomach was going or I didn't really had flavor burn, didn't want another gel. And so I used to cut out strips of something called pro plus these little caffeine tablets, tuck it under my watch. And then I'd. these pills as I ran and I was racing across the Sahara doing the MDS and I basically fell apart on day two in the dunes. I'd gone out possibly a bit too fast and I'd only rationed myself like one caffeine pill for towards the end of the week so on me in a place I could easily get was one pill. I popped it out and I lost it. And just, that's when I thought this is crazy. Why, why isn't there like a convenient way to take the concentrated form of caffeine during exercise so that we did a Kickstarter and asked friends, got a sports scientist in, got a food scientist in, and liaised with them. And it turned out that if you choose something, you actually absorb the chemicals during that process. It's like when you're at university and you take a shot of tequila or something and you swill it in your mouth for 10 seconds and you suddenly get a head rush and that's because there's so many blood vessels under your tongue and your mouth and your throat and the act of chewing just gives the time and the rotation and the exposure to all these membranes and so it means also that the caffeine is absorbed far faster but less is then goes through the stomach, which takes longer, but also is more likely to give you some stomach issues as well. So we, we kind of chanced upon this science that no one else is using and, and then I guess never looked back. How much faster if we compare it to say, taking like a coffee or something like that? Well, this is where the scientific studies on it, but actually, as you know, with scientific studies, they're always controlled with one format. So the studies have been capsules against gum. And we've done choose against capsules, but the it's shown if you if you think of graphs and a typical graph of caffeine is fairly it goes flat and then it Progresses up in a diagonal Whereas when you chew it kicks up a lot. It kicks up far faster so it starts to kick from five minutes typically with and studies, you'd see it for kind of 15 minutes for anything that goes to your stomach, is when it starts to actually have a pronounced effect, then high levels within 15 minutes for something you chew, you'd be looking at more like 25 minutes for something swallowed, and then it peaks in 25 minutes, and it could be up to 55 minutes for anything that passes through the stomach. So while you may feel like you're getting the benefit in that 25 minutes, 45 minute range, it's actually 55 minutes to peak, which is plus and minuses to both. It really depends on what your need is, but it's also worth like the, it then means that actually, if you absorb sublingually with strips or caffeine, choose the caffeine does actually leave the system faster as well. Cause you basically start the count on the half-life earlier. So instead of starting the... It peaks for 45 minutes to an hour in the bloodstream, caffeine does. So you start that at 25 minutes rather than starting at 55 minutes, which is good and bad. If you wanna get to sleep that night, it's great. If you're in a 24 hour race and you're wanting to use fewer doses of caffeine, then it's in some ways a coffee is nicer because it extends out that tail. But actually if you keep on wanting to peak. you need to keep on pushing it up. So that Taylor will eventually be pushed on further. So um, so yeah, it depends partly on what the outcome you're looking to achieve is. And, but there's so many factors with caffeine that make it's use personal, basically. Yeah, I probably should have mentioned earlier, so the caffeine ball that I choose rather than like a drink or a gel or something that some other people might be familiar with. Why? Cause a lot of people know about carbs. They know, you know, you carb load before a marathon, when you are competing, when you're racing, you need some adequate carbs to have as a good fuel source. And what's for someone who hasn't really considered caffeine. I know for me personally, I've never drank a cup of coffee in my life. I never drank tea, like never really been one to gravitate towards anything of a calf caffeinated anything. So. haven't necessarily considered as a performance enhancer or something that, um, might help me. And I'm starting to compete in high rocks races and think now I'm starting to become a little bit more invested in it. Maybe something I do, I do need to look at. So if people are in my position, why would caffeine be a good performance enhancer if, you know, if we were adequately carb loaded and all that sort of stuff? Well, this is the weird thing. It might not be. And they, the If we look at the best meta study we found, 8% of people don't respond to caffeine at all. And so you, if you are one of those people and you take caffeine, you'll actually slow down, which is completely, um, I guess, counter intuitive. And typically you'll know that by, I'd imagine you aren't someone who responds to caffeine. The fact that you don't have tea, you don't have coffee, you've steered away from these things. It's probably linked to it, but If you go out and have a coffee and you feel that buzz, then you know you respond. But how caffeine works and it, it's, it's quite a, it's an amazing drug because it does many, many things. So it releases things like dopamine that makes us feel happier and fall in love. And, but the real benefit for athletes is one of the things it does, it acts like a hormone. It releases fat cells from the liver that can be used as a fuel source. So. that means you're not burning quite as much glycogen from your muscles. So it preserves your glycogen stores and when you run out of glycogen, that's when you hit the wall, that's why we take carbs to supplement our glycogen stores. So actually it prolongs the glycogen you've got in your system already. And it's been shown to improve endurance by up to 8%. Now, the studies, whenever you look at a study on caffeine, bear in mind that you've got that 8% of people that don't respond. 42% of people respond above placebo effect, and 50% of people are super responses, which means they absorb it very quickly. And you'll know this instinctively from, there are some people you know who can have a coffee before they sleep, some people have a coffee in the morning and won't sleep for weeks. So when we look at these studies and we look at stats, actually, typically that is a blend of these 100% of people. And some people caffeine is far better than others. So whenever you read something, have that in mind. Other things it does, it reduces the perception of pain and fatigue. So in your mind, it makes pain feel less. You're still in pain, your body's still receiving the pain. It also makes you feel mentally and physically less tired. So even when you're tiring during a race, that's when you just won't realize that. And so you'll push through it. You get that feeling of energy as well, which actually mentally helps you push harder. Um, and this is where it's very different to carbohydrates because carbohydrates you only really need in races above 75 minutes, typically, because you've got enough glycogen stored in your body. And therefore adding when you've got a car full of fuel, there's no point in adding more fuel if you're only going 30 miles, it doesn't help you drive faster. Petrol only helps you. when you it's the carbohydrates like petrol, it stops you slowing down in longer distances by running out. Whereas caffeine can help you in all distances. So if you think of it as almost two completely different fuel sources, you've got your petrol, which is carbs, and you've got your caffeine, which is your afterburner button that you get in the fast and the furious. That's when the rock looks over to some chump in some Ferrari presses his button, and he's suddenly 10 meters ahead. That's caffeine. But what it also does in the mind, there's a chemical called adenosine that the body creates to make you feel sleepy. And this attaches to receptors in the brain. Caffeine happens to be the same shape as that chemical. And so when you consume caffeine, it actually attaches to the brain and it blocks those senses from receiving adenosine. So it stops you feeling tired, which is why we get that feeling of alertness, of focus. And that is not always that beneficial in a short race, but actually when it comes to ultra running and even marathons and trail races, all the little mistakes you make during the race is often because of nutrition or fatigue, because you use a third of your glucose, a third of the glucose one you exercise is used by the brain, which literally blows your mind. One doesn't literally blow your mind. Blows your minds and pardon the pun. So actually had being alert is, is super important for those racing decisions and ensuring you're, you're not getting lost. And so those are all the ways in which it can help. And, um, the net, the net is that it helps you with, and it also helps with strength as well, so increases strength by up to 7% muscle strength. And, um, and it also helps with. for example, tests of repeat sprint ability, not that vital for running races, but for other sports, it increases performance in that by up to 8%. It's easy to remember because I know it's six, seven, eight. That's why I know all these stats because they're luckily sequential. Yeah, so it's quite a wonder drug for some people, 50% of the population. And the other 42, it's good, 8%, just unlucky. Yeah. It seems like, okay, carbs are good for a fuel source, but it seems like caffeine is like another one of like hijacking, like your hormones and also like your nervous system. It's sort of like, um, helps you become advantageous in those sort of performances in that way, rather than just acting like a fuel source. Like carbs might, um, it's sort of doing all these other wonderful things in the background. Hmm. Excellent. Well, um, It seems like with the caffeine, it seems like depending on the race and what, what you have, what goals you have, probably dosage is important. Like how many milligrams you're taking and also the timing of things. Like you mentioned, it sort of needs to kick up at a certain time. And then it has a certain half-life where we're trying to use this to our advantage. So what would be your advice for runners in relation to the dosage, how much caffeine they're actually having to start with? So this is where I advise athletes to actually test because your response to it is quite different. It's based primarily on your weight. So the optimal dose, and there's been over 50 studies that have shown this is between 50, sorry, between three and six milligrams of caffeine per kilo of body weight, which is a ridiculous amount. So I'm... I've no, I don't ever know what the weight is, but let's say I'm 75 kilograms approximately. So we're looking at 225 milligrams of caffeine. Three red balls is my base for that optimal caffeine dose. Going up to double that six red balls. I mean, you're not going to take that for your interval session, the tempo run or anything that's not your absolute a race. And I found myself personally, my optimal level seems to be between five and 5.5 milligrams. So, so actually I'd aim for that during a race and is how I try and strategize about it. But I, I haven't done that for years because I haven't had a race big enough to be worth it. Because you take that level of caffeine in, it's overwhelming the feeling of it. And, um, which is fantastic mid race, but you do feel. afterwards quite jittery and it can massively affect your sleep, which is why we'd never do that during training for races that aren't your main goal. Now studies are shown also that the it's again, ergogenic effect, which is a sporting effect in sporting performance, you need one milligram, which is far more manageable. So for me, that would be like 75 milligrams or so 80 milligrams. So most people are in that kind of 80, so 60 to 90 milligram. spot, which it's worth looking at your gel or your pill or your coffee to get a sense of where that is because a lot of gels are massively understrength. You might have gels with 30, 40 milligrams. Same with energy chews, you might have the whole packet of energy chews is 50, 60 milligrams and so it depends then on how you use your caffeine. If you look at someone like Kipchoge who's doing a two-hour marathon He can start with caffeine in his system. So he fires out at the start, knowing he's only got two hours to try and maintain a caffeine peak in performance. But I personally, I'd never do that because I'm slower anyway. But also I think the biggest mistake people make is starting too fast. It's super easy to do anyway, but it's hard not to do when you have caffeine in your system because you feel so great. and you'll just burn your glycogen stores at a higher level, which will then impact on the tail end. So I prefer to have caffeine. Other than if I was doing a short race, like a 5K, a 10K, I'd take one dose of caffeine before. Depending on the source, if it was a coffee, I'd take it maybe 45 minutes before. If it was a caffeine bullet, 10, 15 minutes before. And then I'd take, if I was taking a chew, I take the caffeine during the race. So a 5k, as soon as I start, I'll have it only half a mile in. And while I might not necessarily hit my peak caffeine, what I like is having the psychological benefit of this second wave of kick. Because when you're towards the end of your race to suddenly feel that mental fatigue lift and to suddenly feel like you've got that nitro button, I just love that. to be able to attack right through to the finish. Other people may not find that quite as beneficial. But with longer races like marathons, you'd typically want to take one when you start to lose your pace. So if you're using a gel, you'd want to schedule in your caffeine to try and predict the time when you think you're gonna start losing your pace. For most people that could be... Well, sometimes it's 14 miles if you're not well trained, but typically if you're well trained, let's say 18 to 22. So if you're having a gel, you need to think about your gel strategy and schedule in or energy choose, you schedule in your carb, you see your carbon caffeine mix, which can be, it doesn't give you freedom for one, but, or if I was taking something that's not primarily carb based, I just wait until you're starting to tire, then I'd have one. Um, so for example, a caffeine, but it's a hundred milligrams or a, like a Revy strip is 50 run gum 50. Um, and so you'd have one or two of those. And we found that there's, there hadn't been any scientific studies on dual dosage of caffeine, which is incredibly frustrating because it would be really useful to know how we all respond. I know how I respond, but given there's those three different pools of people based on their DNA, we'd want to understand that better. But my understanding has been that you always need to increase the level of total caffeine in your system to continue seeing a beneficial effect. So if I was doing a marathon, for example, I would probably take one caffeine bullet at mile 17 when I start to tire, and then I'd back it up either with... another caffeine bullet less than an hour so that I'm taking on a whole new dose before the peak has dropped and therefore my total amount is higher or I might take two towards the end. When I did something like Comrades, which is a 90k race for me was seven hours, I started with a lower dose of caffeine, partly because I didn't want to have as far, I wasn't running as quickly. I didn't want to have as half of the response, but it also then meant I started off with half a tube, but now I take something like a ginger raw, which is like a ginger based chew. So it settles your stomach as well. 33 milligrams. And it then means when you have your second dose of caffeine, you can have a higher dose that's still not a massive amount. And it just then continues the period in which you can peak. And so if you're, if you're not having a dose of If you're doing longer races, actually lower doses of caffeine allow you to increase that range. But for shorter races, and I'd say like a marathon of 50 km down, then you need to ensure that your caffeine source is significant enough that you're hitting that one milligram of caffeine per kilo easily. And obviously, if you're having something like a gel, one of the reasons I didn't like having caffeine gels as well is typically you only have one or two gels, so one gel an hour, so two gels an hour, depending on the source, it was 22 milligrams, 30 milligrams, and I'd taken my gel and then I suddenly started to tire because I was still running out of energy in my system. So I needed my caffeine at that point and I only had a caffeine gel. And so if you're just using carbohydrates mixed with caffeine as your source, you're then reliant on your carbohydrate schedule to take your caffeine. So I had to wait another 25 minutes to then have my caffeine gel because I couldn't overload my stomach with what would have then been 90 milligrams, sorry, 90 grams of carbohydrates. And so being able to uncouple your caffeine source from your carbohydrate source is incredibly useful because it gives you more flexibility in being able to take it early if you suddenly need to. but also to be adaptive. And actually there's nothing that mentally for me is more powerful than not needing my caffeine and actually taking it slightly later than I'm expecting, thinking, oh my, I'm running this person down, I'm feeling great, and I haven't even taken my afterburner yet. Like that to me is such a great positive attitude to be in that if I can delay my caffeine. Even though it's got that performance benefit for, for how I feel about managing my race and my positivity, I love doing that. And that's what it allows you to do also. When you talk about, okay, three to six milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Is that what the research shows in terms of maximizing your performance? Yeah, exactly. So, so we don't have to do that often. And so I do that in my. If you're training for a spring marathon and you've got three half marathons in the buildup and you're doing a 20 mile long run, like you would not do it, you might do it in one of the half marathons to test when you're going for a half marathon PB, but you wouldn't do it in any of the race, any other races. And when, so, and then when you do that, so let's just say I've calculated, say five milligrams per kilogram body weight. Is that the amount of caffeine intake all accumulate throughout the entire race? Well, this is where we don't actually know because the studies have always been one dose of caffeine. And this is the hole in our knowledge. And because caffeine leaves the system so slowly, actually we should talk about half-life as well, it is quite easy to accumulate caffeine a lot faster than you think. So you can hit those peaks. If you're taking on say 400 milligrams of caffeine, which is a crazy amount, you'll probably end up with 300 milligrams in your system by the time you've done that, just because of the nature of how long it takes for it to come out. Because you're, the half life of caffeine is between four and five hours for most people. So that means from the point at which it's peaked, which if you're swallowing it, 55 minutes to an hour, if you're chewing it, if you're stripping it. 25 minutes, 30 minutes, it then takes four to five hours for the amount to drop to half of what you've taken on board. So say you take 100 milligrams in four to five hours, you're gonna have 50 milligrams still in your system. So if we think about the optimal caffeine dose of three to six milligrams, actually, it takes so long for that to leave the system that if you're in a marathon over the course of three hours, or say you're... taking caffeine for the two of the hours of your marathon, then only a tiny amount really of the caffeine you first took at the beginning of those two hours would have left the system. But even within that, there's loads of weirdness where if you smoke, for example, it's been shown to reduce the half life by 50%. So someone who's a, you know, a regular smoker. There's some guy in China who's renowned for smoking while he runs. He's the smoking marathoner. Kind of a legend, but also terrible. He'll need to take on far more caffeine in larger doses to be able to keep on getting those step changes, those gear changes in your caffeine intake. It's also been shown that women who are on the that can double the half life of your caffeine. And so that, it probably won't matter too much in your caffeine intake during a race, but it is worth considering how much it will potentially affect your sleep because you'd want to potentially try and, if I was on the pill when I was finding out it was affecting my sleep, that's where. it is worth just trying to cut out caffeine as much as you can from your life because the impact does have, it is based also on how much caffeine you typically take on board and you can reduce and blunt the impact of caffeine. So weirdly, I'd say that most people take too much caffeine and not enough caffeine, because we are almost using it as a crutch throughout our daily lives, which then means when we take it, we get less of an impact and we have to take more to get that impact. And therefore it makes us tired, which therefore means we have a morning coffee. And so it becomes a vicious cycle. Whereas, you know, I've got my pint of tea, but this is decaf tea. I have decaf coffee. And it means that when I take a smaller amount of caffeine, um, I actually get more of a return from it. So you're talking more about like, you know, people build up a tolerance for caffeine and So we don't really want to be taking it too often to then, you know, minimize our gains when it comes to performance, when we have to use our caffeine. Um, this is kind of like what my mind goes to if I've said I've never had coffee or tea in my life, never really drawn towards caffeinated drinks. But, um, as timing would have it, I actually had a DNA test done two months ago. And I was actually, um, they had that I was, I had the genotype for highly processing or quickly. processing the caffeine. So it seems like I have one of the 50% of people that do respond really well to caffeine. And so, um, here I am with a very low tolerance, but a good response to caffeine. So maybe I have to start using it, um, for, to see what the effects are like. I'm excited to actually give it a try, but your point is really interesting because a lot of people do have caffeinated drinks just to get through the day. Um, almost some, like I guess in severe cases, almost to bring them back up to baseline in some cases. But the, uh, so do you know if someone is highly reliant on caffeine, does it take a certain period of like, you know, minimizing their dosage so that they can, I guess, change their baseline levels and then start responding better to caffeine when it comes to races? Yeah. Yes. And, but it is also important to say. Again, it's not as simple as I've made it sound. So I've, I've interpreted different studies to, there's been one study, for example, of Ironman athletes where they were regular caffeine users. Some of them reduced their caffeine intake. Some of them didn't. And it was still shown that caffeine did benefit substantially the people that didn't cut out their caffeine. But then there are other studies that have shown very different results as well. And my interpretation of it is, we know from the science that the receptors I mentioned that adenosine attaches to, when you regularly use caffeine, your brain naturally creates more senses because it actually wants to be tired. Your body wants to go to sleep when it needs to go to sleep. And so that's the response that your body does. So my interpretation is that the... physiological effects, the releasing of the fat cells and some various other properties still happen and you still benefit from, even if you're a regular caffeine user, but the mental impact is blunted by it. So you're feeling of awake and you're feeling of tiredness, which is why a lot of people have that morning coffee. So it takes four days typically for people to get caffeine completely. completely out of the system, depending on the dose they've had. This again is really tricky though, because one cup of coffee has been shown to be up to three times the strength of another cup of coffee from the same chain for the same coffee. Why that? A bean being grown to actually being your cup can change the caffeine concentration. So the soil, how much sunlight it gets, the humidity, how long the beans dried for, how long it's roasted for, how coarsely it's ground, the pressure going through the barista, what's it called? Coffee machine. All those elements. And then the amount of water, the amount of all these things make a difference. So you, unless you get, there is a coffee called true start coffee that guarantee their strength. But otherwise actually coffee is a bit of a lottery and particularly when you travel because you're probably having a different bean, you're having a different, um, a completely different barista. And so when we're trying to calculate how much. caffeine, how long it takes for it to leave our system, it's tricky if you're drinking bought coffee, where there will be massive variety within that. And particularly if you if you have a race in America, the level of caffeine in some of their coffee is crazy because they may be putting double triple espresso into their coffees and you could have some drinks that are up to kind of 300 350 milligrams in one coffee. which is four or five red balls. It's frankly quite dangerous because you shouldn't really be having like two of those a day and you're over any health recommendations for your day. And even one of those and you're over the health recommendations for the EU for how much it's taking an hour. But the other studies I've seen, you've got four days for it to leave your system, it should take at least two weeks for some of those effects to reverse. And one of the challenges with caffeine dependence, if you are a very heavy caffeine user, then you may actually have worse sleep when you cut your caffeine, you'll get headaches potentially if you drink that much. So if someone is a massive user of caffeine and they suddenly realize they want to cut it before a race. My advice would be only do that if you've got enough time to properly get it to clear your system without it impacting your sleep. Because if you're going for this four day window, you may actually, it may not be worth it because you might be so tired and just sticking to your regular routine is maybe the best option at that stage. But... I, there are now good decaf coffees in the world that yes, they're not as good as proper coffees, but it's amazing how quickly your taste buds adapt to finding it as nice as the coffee you had. And so I would recommend people to don't have morning coffees, cut caffeine out of your system. And that way you can go out and like 60 milligrams, 70 milligrams of caffeine, you can suddenly use that. in your interval session so that when you're, for me, I'll use caffeine when I race, but I'll use it when I train, even when I can't be asked to train. I'll have then some caffeine and it gives me that feeling of I want to kick the door down, blow the bloody doors off and will actually do the training session I didn't want to. Or when I used to be in heavy training blocks, I'd sometimes really fear. my, it's probably the tempo run I feared the most, the Thursday day that would be building up to kind of nine miles, 10 miles of hills, like a marathon pace or, and I'd find actually having caffeine in my back pocket would be, it would just take the fear out of that session. But also when you're, you've had the week's training, because Friday's your rest day, you've had the week's training in your legs, you're so fatigued. But knowing at mile four, mile five, that you've got caffeine in your back pocket, that you can whip out and bang, you can actually finish faster, it would just change my whole mentality towards that session and would mean actually, you'd suddenly be smashing the second half. Wouldn't do that every time because it's important also to train yourself to have to guts through a really hard session with no support and just use the power of your mind. But if you've reduced caffeine out of your system, it then means you can have your 60, 70, 80 milligrams of caffeine to achieve that effect during your training. And if, you know, especially if it's absorbed quicker, it means four hours later, you don't actually have that much caffeine less in your system versus a cup of coffee, which could be 150 milligrams that you have at lunchtime. You're still gonna have more caffeine, more caffeine in your system than if you had like a lower dose of caffeine early evening. But like going back to the variability of caffeine in certain coffees, if someone does like a coffee or just wants to make sure that their caffeine intakes really dialed in, do you have any advice for them? Yeah, not really, because it's, it's just a minefield there. I mean, truth, there is a company called True Start Coffee, who make a guaranteed strength coffee bean. Um, I like it, but I am not very sophisticated when it comes to my, my breadth of caffeine, coffee, um, coffee bean flavorings and things. And appreciation of finer things. So, um, I'd say if, if you make your own coffee, that's better because you could control how fine you grind it and go through the same process, same process each time to make sure, you know, you're extracting a similar amount of caffeine each time. And so the more you can control the better in essence, because you can then you're more certain that you've reduced the variance of processes that can change the strength of that coffee. With the like coffee aside with like, gels and other packaged caffeine sources that say they have 30, 60, 90 milligrams, would they be fairly consistent? Yeah, they're pretty good. I mean, I know we've had with spring gels, a lot of controversy about their most caffeine in caffeine gels is artificial caffeine. And the reason they do that is partly it's cheaper, but actually it gives a more pronounced effect in a more concentrated form. And so they, I've never heard of a gel that isn't the caffeine dose it says it is. It might be like one, two milligrams out, but you're gonna get. what it says. It might be slightly different in products with Guana or products with natural caffeine because again, that's where you do have the variance in the source. I've still not heard of any natural caffeine products that have been tested to have shown massive variance. I don't know if it has happened or hasn't. There is the opportunity for it more, but I've got no... references on it. Yeah. Going back to the different, you know, genetics and people who will respond quite well, um, some who respond a bit above, I guess, placebo, and then those who don't respond well at all, um, without getting a genetic test, is there anything that someone run as listening could do to see or increase their likelihood of fitting into one camp over the other? There's, there's nothing you can do to change, um, change the groupings just because it's based on your DNA. I was just meaning like for someone to learn what camp they are in. Yeah. I mean, I, I just say have a morning coffee and see how you feel or just have, take some caffeine before your next run and, and just go and do a park run or similar. And. Just try it one week with caffeine, one week without, and see what difference it makes to you. But the, because a lot of it is to do the, it's basically your absorption rates of caffeine then determines how much the impact is because the people that don't respond is, and that's the thing, sometimes the people that don't respond, it can keep them awake for hours as well, even though they don't respond to it, it's because they absorb it so slowly that. they're not getting the that ergogenic effect of one milligram per kilo. But they're actually still drip feeding this caffeine through their system and it's not leaving and so because the variance on the half life of caffeine is so great based on other factors. And there was one lady who was shown to have, she was very ill on many medications. He had a half life of 53 days. I think it was. Well, um, so all of these other factors do play into it. So actually the only advice, which would be bad advice would be, you could take up smoking to actually increase your absorption rate, which may have an effect on the performance benefit of it, but obviously you're going to die early. So not necessarily that beneficial and hasn't been tested that well either to know how much you'd have to smoke and all the but because there are all these other factors that actually, while we have these quite simple buckets based on our DNA, there will be massive crossover between those groups of some people that seem to actually have a better performance than the DNA group would suggest. So if you're within the 7% of the population that don't respond well, you would take a gel, you know, Oh, will you take some caffeine beforehand? You might not notice any difference in performance. If anything, like you said, might be a bit slower, but then afterwards, quite alert, hard to fall asleep, hard to sort of wind down throughout the day, just because it's taking such a long time for, um, the caffeine to be processed in your system. If there's, if you were to try to guess someone who does have a really fast absorption rate, who is a good responder to caffeine, what would, how would they feel if they went for a five, 10 K run with caffeine compared to the other camp who's not responding as well? Like what are people looking out for? Yeah. So it does raise your heart rates, which is worth factoring in if you're someone who races to heart rate because you will suddenly get a spike which means all your data can be out. So you'll feel that increased heart rate that makes you kind of fight or flight mode slightly where you're like okay let's go let's go. A little bit like a nervous energy and when you run, when you move you'll just feel like everything's slightly easier. kind of feel like you're flying a bit like the next percent, you know, if you're wearing the vapor flies and you just feel like everything is smooth and you're suddenly a gazelle, that's how it feels. And then it slowly kind of tails off. Okay. And you're saying like with these super responders, they that sensation would happen a lot sooner. So that might happen, you know, 20 to 25 minutes after taking the caffeine as opposed to someone who's not a super responder and that might take longer. That might take, you know, 55 minutes. Yeah. And that, that's my understanding on it. And again, it's not, it's not being tested that well either because the, the companies that are doing the testings on the genome are companies that aren't actually linked to the sport performance. And so they've never actually hate that I've not seen any studies where they've put people into the different buckets of their genetic response and then tested them differently in different ways. So part of what I'm saying is kind of conjecture on my interpretation of the crossover but we again we haven't had enough scientific research to split it out because the numbers like that's why I say up to six percent it's very hard to actually know what the true figure should be for those three different groups, because you could buy just statistical improbability, end up with a group of 20 athletes, it tends to be 10 to 20 people they do these scientific studies for, or even 20 is quite a large group. So you could suddenly have three people that are non-responders that massively skew the data or having none of them again would skew it. it would be brilliant to have separate studies for the three groups to truly understand what it means. Um, particularly, I think the sleep element as well, because this is why I say test it like don't say it to race day. Cause if you, I know I can have caffeine at night in a tempo run, which is when I tend to do them like a track Tuesday or Thursday, and I know I can do that, get the performance benefit, and also make the session feel easier, and still sleep. And so I know that just through experience, but if you're not actually tinkering around with it, you won't know that, and you might as well train better, and in some ways actually just make your training easier, remove that dread, or increase your motivation to do it. so that um So you can benefit throughout your training rather than just saving for race day. And then, because on race day, I typically would get clubbing all night anyway, as a celebration. So the fact I'm completely wired off what was then seven pro platters or like four caffeine bullets. Um, yeah, it wouldn't matter. Cause if anything, it was, it was better because it meant I could drink more and party harder. Yeah. It's, it's serving another purpose once you've crossed the finish line. Yeah. changing our hats. I think like, I advise most of the listeners to, to test and tweak things anyway, so like, um, it would be, you know, trying things out, seeing when you get that kick, if you do at what time in the race, and then like you say, try to take the caffeine and anticipate when you're going to have that dip in energy and then, you know, try to preemptively keep ahead of that. And if it is a park run that You want to just test what the caffeine feels like. Yeah. Take it 15 minutes beforehand or an hour beforehand test and tweak these things without, um, to see what fits a natural groove for you. I think, um, most runners would be on board with just taking tweaking that and seeing what the individual response is like. So, um, I think that's pretty good advice. Yeah. And, and there are, there's so much variation in all of these elements that It is just advice because your system is so different to anyone else's and so you're the only one who can truly find out what the right strategy is for you. You've mentioned a lot about sleep and how that can detrimentally impact someone if they, you know, take a while to absorb it or if they take it too late or if they take too much and those sorts of things. Are there any other potential drawbacks or uh, hindrances or things that just people need to be aware of when taking caffeine. Yeah, I mean, some, some people just, they just don't respond to it well at all. And their stomach will completely go. And that is, that's, it seems to be unavoidable for some, you know, IBS is unavoidable for some people. So again, that's why we would trial it. But I always take Imodium before any major race anyway, partly because I've, I've And I find that even with training, my stomach still is sometimes, you know, not the happiest during an ultra race. And so I'd always advise a medium because there's, there's literally no downside to it. It doesn't affect performance in any way. Um, and in fact, I, I'd advise it when you go to a music festival as well, when I go to Glastonbury. I'll just load up on emodion and hopefully just pull out a diamond at the end of five days. But yeah, so that is something that can also be an impact for you. There has been research that caffeine actually increases recovery and the carbohydrate absorption afterwards. But the studies I've seen on that have been such high doses of caffeine. It's not worth doing. because while it may help with that recovery, it will impact on your sleep. Something else to bear in mind though, is that when you take caffeine, it does slightly spike the insulin levels in your blood. And when you spike your insulin levels, you then, insulin reduces the blood sugar in your system. And so this is why we have sugar crashes for example. So say when you're taking an energy drink, actually a lot of the time that people have crashes that they think are caffeine crashes, they're sugar crashes. But when we're performing, if you take caffeine and you stop taking carbohydrates, then it is possible that you're gonna have a kind of sugar crash and carbohydrate crash. Because the chances are you've had loads of gels in your system or chews in your system anyway. And... it can almost be tempting if you're a few miles out, you're an hour out and you've got this caffeine buzz and you're like, I don't need carbohydrates anymore. Actually, you should carry on taking carbs because you don't want the amplification of your stopping taking carbs that will then, you've already spiked your insulin levels anyway, combined with caffeine to then mean you suddenly get really low blood sugar levels. So, that's essential to keep on topping up your fuel. I'd advise that when you race anyway. If your stomach really is gone and you can't handle any more carbohydrates, then one recommendation is to do a carbohydrate rinse. And so if you just take an energy drink, you swill it in your mouth for kind of five, 10, 20 seconds, that signals to the brain that carbohydrates is coming. And so even If you're not swallowing that because you're like, I'm just so sick of gels. Um, it will trigger to your brain to release additional glycogen from your muscles, which can then be used as your carbohydrate source. And so that will still help. Um, in the latter half of a race, when you can't take carbs to just ensure you're not getting that. And sugar crash, caffeine crash combined. Very good advice. Is it, we're going to. wrap things up in a second. We've covered a lot about caffeine, good practical uses and those sorts of things. Has there been any particular myths or misconceptions about caffeine that we haven't yet addressed that you think might be useful for listeners? Um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say necessarily myths. Like I do think some elements are overstated. I like the Huberman lab podcast where he talks about caffeine. A lot of what he says actually is not true in practical senses. He talks about- What's he saying if someone hasn't listened? Um, so one of the elements can be that when you have caffeine, it, it actually makes you like having caffeine. It makes you like the people you're with because you get a dopamine impact. And so therefore you feel better and you feel warmer and all, you know, cuddly and all of this. Um, but, and, and it's also been reported that it's, it's kind of a love drug, uh, which I think instinctively we, we know that's not true because we're not all falling in love with our baristas. I mean, maybe you are, um, but, but I, there's, there's often, uh, I think in science and particularly with social media now, if something has been shown to cause something in a small dose, it's then reported as this is what happens as if you've just overwhelmed with the feeling of love. So I say that's one thing I've heard this reported. One thing that I think is quite interesting about caffeine that is useful if you're doing multi day races, or like 24 hour races, is science has shown that, or even when you're doing a long drive, science has shown if you can go to sleep for a small nap, or you can take caffeine instead of going to sleep. Actually, the best thing to do is to take caffeine and to go to sleep straight away. Because the gap in which it takes for the caffeine to be absorbed, it allows your body to remove adenosine from the receptors. we talked about it flushes that out of the system. And then when you wake up, not only do you wake up with a caffeine kick, but actually caffeine has then replaced the adenosine, blocking your senses in your mind. And so it's shown that if you have a caffeine nap, it's more beneficial than just sleeping, or just caffeine. And that's the one time I'd say, don't have like a caffeine bullet or a caffeine strip, because They kick fast, which means actually, you're not going to get that delay in the kick, which allows your minds to properly sleep longer. So you'll wake up earlier if you have a caffeine bullet or a strip. Whereas if you have a coffee or an energy drink, maybe not an energy drink, because the sugar will probably keep you awake. So, so yeah, if so you have a coffee, that's the one time I'd advise to use it because you don't want that. quick kick actually, you want that slight delay. But if you're a trucker, and you're doing long drives, you know, from Perth to Sydney, then caffeine naps are the way forward, basically, they're the hack. Very cool. Caffeine bullets, where can people get it? Where do you like is it worldwide? What sort of form do they come in? Like, in terms of like dosages, milligrams and those sorts of things. So the, the mint ones are a hundred milligrams. The chocolate orange is 85. So we've, we've created them to be basically an ergogenic effect for nearly everyone. We do have a product called ginger raws, which is 33 milligrams. That's kind of completely natural from raw ginger, virgin coconut oil. And the idea behind those is that they. They've got enough ginger roll in to then settle the stomach. So those are great for things like alchers, or if you just want to have one or two chews on your longer run, just a little pep up. We are, where we sell, we're on Amazon in most countries and we're, we're sold on quite a lot of sports sites in America and I think in New Zealand, FuelMe are big and we've got distributors in Europe, but. Caffeinebullet.com delivers to America, Canada and the UK, and everything else, Amazon's probably the easiest way to get it. We've got a chewing gum called Sustain Gum, which is 100% sustainable. So most of you don't know that a piece of chewing gum has the same amount of plastic in it as a drinking straw. So it could take up to a thousand years to biodegrade. So these are natural gums with biodegradable packaging and... But I don't know whether on sale. I think they're coming to Australia as we speak and they're in America, Canada. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's always a lottery to know, cause we, we have to go through various steps to get products cleared. And actually, interestingly, Australia seems to be far more restrictive than a lot of other countries and particularly with their rules to do with things like tablets, I think have changed and, and they're on tap, because Caffeine's almost fit in between the gaps where legislation was passed to do with caffeine linked to energy drinks, but it's not really been updated for food. Um, but we've got a new product called an electro bullet coming out quite soon, which is like a triple strength electrolyte chew. So same form as a caffeine bullet. That's like a starburst. Um, but it will just have 300, 400 milligrams of electrolytes in so that you can, um, you can really easily take on your electrolytes, but also because they're all kind of salty flavors, it makes you actually want to drink more as well, which is one of the challenges when you race longer distances. Yeah, I said well, for me having some sweat tests in the past, I am a salty sweater. And so that might be another product that might have to line up. So that sounds good. I will flood them over to you Brady. I want to thank you for coming on, mate. This has been really insightful. I can't believe in like my 350 odd episodes, I haven't really discussed caffeine. And I think having you on here was the perfect person to kick us off. And a lot of listeners may not know a lot about pro about the caffeine. We've certainly learned a lot today. So thanks for coming on and sharing your knowledge. And my pleasure. And it's weird to think people are spending $300 actually us so Australian $500 on a pair of trainers. Actually, caffeine benefits them more than those pair of trainers. So that's the thing that blows my mind. So you can save yourself a fortune. Yes. Well, great pitch to finish this off. Thanks David. Thanks for coming on. My pleasure. Thanks, Brady. If you are looking for more resources to run smarter, or you'd like to jump on a free 20 minute injury chat with me, then click on the resources link in the show notes. There you'll find a link to schedule a call, plus free resources like my very popular injury prevention five day course. You'll also find- Run Smarter book and ways you can access my ever-growing treasure trove of running research papers. Thanks once again for joining me and well done on prioritising your running wisdom.