The Internet is rife with foods that help you lose weight even without exercise. But from actual medical experts to anyone with common knowledge of how the human body works would tell you that the only way to lose weight effectively and permanently is to exercise and put those muscles to work. However, there are some foods that can enhance the impact of muscle movement and provide quicker results from the workout. One such delicious example is coffee. A cup of coffee on its own would not help your drop any pounds, but if it precedes an actual workout, it will word wonders. Here are five amazing benefits of drinking coffee before exercise.
Top 5 Benefits of Drinking Coffee Before Working Out
1. Coffee improves your focus.
Caffeine is known to work against drowsiness and sleepiness. It is also known to improve attention, energy and focus at the same time. Coffee contains just the right amount of caffeine to get your mind to become alert to the movement in your muscles, the heat producing inside your body when you are working out, and then mindfully directing that focus and heat towards achieving your workout goals. A cup of coffee before a workout will also give you just enough energy to keep you going through the most strenuous parts of your workout routine and will not load you up with calories.
2. Coffee boosts your metabolism.
Whether your workout goals involve losing weight, gaining muscle, or simply toning your body and improving your health, the root process of all of these goals is to increase your metabolism. Your metabolism is the chemical process of breaking down food and turning it into energy. We need this energy in order to move, think, grow, and everything in between.
Having a cup of coffee before exercise has proven to burn 15 percent more calories, and it is not just a psychological process. The experiments were done with coffee and a placebo, and then the results were documenting lending credibility to coffee as a metabolic booster.
3. Coffee helps in reducing muscle pain and provides muscle fuel.
This benefit of drinking coffee is related to its ability to provide energy in general, but look at it in this way. Spending one extra hour at work will be the same amount of work irrespective of if you are tired or not, but if you are already tired, the extra hour might end up giving you a headache or joint pains. Likewise, when coffee becomes your source of extra energy, it also makes your muscles sturdier and lets you workout more efficiently. When you are not lethargic, you not only workout more but your body is also able to absorb more stress.
4. Coffee improves blood circulation.
While better blood flow is known to help burn fat faster, it also removes toxins faster and improves health in general. Drinking a cup of coffee before a workout means that you are not only improving your endurance for exercise, but are also prepping your body to expel blood toxins, and waste from your blood vessels. At the very least, it will allow you to reach your fitness goals faster, and give you smoother and clearer skin as an added advantage. Over longer periods of time, this may also translate into improved cardiovascular health and reduce chances of heart diseases significantly.
5. Coffee speeds up muscle recovery.
If you already have flawless skin and your workout routine is merely a part of maintaining your health, you could still get tired after working out. The more frequent you workout, the more likely it is you will have to put more time and care into muscle recovery which is essential in maintaining the health of your muscles. If you are only starting to maintain a workout routine or trying to build up muscles, then it is all the more important that you start to focus on you muscle recovery plan.
Coffee is an excellent aide for muscle recovery. Drinking coffee before or after you exercise with speed up your muscle recovery. The natural antioxidants in coffee will clear your post-workout inflammation. According to some studies, having a cup of coffee an hour or two before or after workout can reduce muscle pain by half.
Final Thoughts
With so many proven benefits of coffee as an addendum to your fitness routine, there is no reason not to have a beautiful Coffee Gator utensil resting up on your kitchen shelf to welcome you after a good night’s sleep and to be your friend in making your workout better, your health better, and ultimately your every day better!