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EFFECTS OF CAFFEINE INGESTION ON ANAEROBIC POWER PERFORMANCE DURING REPEATED UPPER BODY WINGATE BOUTS

Abstract

A.E. Lee, M.R. Jarvis, J.R. Parks, S.J. Everett, G.E. McBride, W. Repovich FACSM, and N.H. Lawton

Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA

Previous studies suggest that caffeine ingestion may not significantly augment lower body anaerobic power during repeated sprint bouts, such as the Wingate Anaerobic Power test. Findings on this topic are mixed, and similar studies have shown significant increases in upper body muscular endurance performance following acute caffeine ingestion. PURPOSE: To determine the effects of caffeine, as an ergogenic aid, on upper body anaerobic power performance during repeated Upper Body Wingate Anaerobic Power Test (UBWT) intervals. METHODS: Twenty-six college-aged participants (15 women, 11 men, 22.19 ± 1.5 y old; 169.93 ± 9.53 cm; 69.25 ± 13.79 kg) volunteered for this randomized, double blind, crossover study. Participants reported to the lab on two separate testing sessions separated by seven days. During each testing session, participants consumed either caffeinated sports jellybeans (CJB), with a caffeine dose of 2 mg/kg of body mass (BM), or an equal volume of non-caffeinated sports jellybeans (NCJB). Participants were asked to consume the jellybeans as quickly as possible, and then sat still for 40 minutes before completing a 5-min warm-up on a Monark 894 E Peak cycle ergometer mounted on a customized table and modified for upper-body work. Following the warm-up, participants completed three 30-sec bouts of UBWT. Intervals were separated by 2-min of active recovery. Drop weight resistance was set at 3.5% BM. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance was used to compare absolute and relative peak power drop between intervals (PPD), mean peak power (MPP), mean minimum power (MMP), and mean power drop (MPD), with significance set at p ≤ 0.05. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences were found between CJB and NCJB conditions across all variables. CONCLUSION: These data show that caffeine did not significantly affect upper body anaerobic power performance during repeated bouts of high intensity anaerobic work. Proper pedaling position during a UBWT, and ideal crank arm length during upper-body ergometry are not well researched, and could have affected performance. Future studies should utilize an upper-body specific ergometer, as the use of a modified lower body ergometer may have limited performance.

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