Performance
Caffeine before training
Caffeine is one of a very short list of supplements with genuinely robust evidence for performance. Most of the mistakes people make with it are about timing and counting rather than about whether it works.
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- ZOMBIE editorial
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- 5 min read
Timing
With a swallowed dose — a capsule, a pre-workout drink — the usual advice is 45 to 60 minutes before you start, because that is how long it takes to peak.
With a pouch, absorption starts in the mouth, so the useful window is shorter and more flexible — put one in around 20 minutes before, which conveniently is about the length of a warm-up.
The practical benefit is that you do not have to decide an hour in advance whether you are training, which in real life is when the decision usually gets made.
Dose
The performance literature generally works in milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight, commonly around 3mg/kg, with diminishing returns above that and increasing side effects.
- 60kg: roughly 180mg — one 150mg pouch, or one 100mg plus one 50mg.
- 75kg: roughly 225mg — two 100mg pouches, or a 150mg plus a 50mg.
- 90kg: roughly 270mg — but note EFSA's single-dose figure is 200mg, so this is a case for splitting rather than stacking.
- More is not better. Past the useful range you get the heart rate and the jitter without the additional output.
Why not a pre-workout
No objection to them in principle, but two practical ones. First, the caffeine content of a scoop is frequently large and inconsistently declared, and it is stacked with other stimulants that make the total hard to reason about. Second, it is 400ml of liquid immediately before you start moving.
A pouch is a known number and no volume. If you are also drinking coffee that day, the known number is the only way to keep the daily total under control.
Mint is the wrong flavour for hard efforts
A specific, practical point: menthol and heavy breathing do not go together. The cooling sensation that is pleasant at a desk becomes distracting when you are breathing hard through your mouth.
The watermelon and citrus pouches exist partly for this reason — no menthol, nothing that interferes with breathing.
Sources
This guide is general information about caffeine, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, under 18, taking medication or living with a heart or anxiety condition, speak to a pharmacist or GP before using concentrated caffeine products.