Benefits of Drinking Coffee

Coffee is something that many of us look forward to drinking frist thing in the morning when we wake up. It’s something that has become second nature, we get up and make a cup of coffee. When we’re making our coffee we don’t tend to think of the effects that it might have on us, minus the fact that we know the caffeine will wake us up. But just what does the cup of coffee do to us, especially in terms of fitness? You might actually be surprised at what you find out.

Boosts Your Workouts

We all know that coffee contains caffeine, I mean that’s practically why all of us drink it right? What most of us don’t realize is that this caffeine can actually help improve our workouts. Not only does caffeine help to wake us up, but it has also been shown to improve aerobic performance, muscle strength and endurance, jumping and power performance, and overall workout speed. There have been studies that have shown that caffeine can even help improve your VO2 max (the maximum rate of oxygen you can consume). So not only does the caffeine we get from our coffee help to wake us up, but it also can help us improve our workouts!

Improves Metabolic Rate

Improving our metabolic rate is something that virtually everyone is always trying to do. One of the common ways we know we can help improve our metabolism is by consuming caffeine. The reasoning for this is that drinking caffeine increases your amount of brown adipose tissue, or more commonly known as “brown fat” cells. These cells have a higher thermogenic effect, so when we drink caffeine the activity of these cells goes up. This means these cells will now burn more fat due to the increase in your body’s temperature. Unfortunately, this increase in our metabolic rate is something that isn’t necessarily a permanent fix to increase your metabolism. Once your body gets used to the caffeine, this effect will wear off. The only way to eliminate this from occurring is to change up the amount of caffeine intake you consume to ensure that your body doesn’t get used to it.

Improves Immune System Function

Our immune system is the thing that helps keep us up and running, so being able to have this run at its optimal efficiency is ideal. Surprisingly, this is something that coffee can actually help us with. Coffee contains something called Polyphenol antioxidants. This affects the way that the cells line the inner walls of the blood vessels. As a result of this it helps to reduce the risk of some cancers, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and even some neurological disorders. Another way that coffee can benefit our immune systems is that coffee contains another enzyme called Ethylamine. This enzyme primes the response of your T-cells, which help aid the body’s defense against infection. That defense mechanism has also been shown to help reduce systemic inflammatory biomarkers.

I’m sure most of these things came as a surprise to you as you weren’t aware of these benefits that you get from consuming coffee. Not only is it something that we can drink to help improve our performance in the gym, but it’s also something that we can use to help strengthen our immune system. Knowing this just helps justify that extra cup of coffee we need in the morning!

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