I Drank Coffee Before CrossFit For 1 Week, and This Is The Scary Thing That Happened

Published on 7/30/2018 at 5:50 PM

POPSUGAR Photography | Jenny Sugar

I recently got into drinking coffee about a year ago because black coffee is one of the drinks you can have while intermittent fasting. In addition to its curbing my appetite, I also love it for other health benefits. I usually drink it starting around 9 or 10 a.m. and sip my very weak 16-ounce cup for about two or three hours (it's 6 ounces of the strong-ass coffee my husband makes, mixed with 6 ounces of water and a few ice cubes).

I definitely don't need coffee to survive. I feel peppy enough without it, and herbal or green tea or sparkling water also does the trick in filling me up if I'm feeling a little hungry mid-morning before my eating window starts at noon.

I can go days where I realize I haven't had one sip of coffee, but when I do have it, it's always after my workout. Many of my CrossFit buddies drink a big mug before class, so I wanted to see if drinking coffee beforehand would improve my performance.

What I Did

For one week straight, I sipped coffee about 15 minutes before my early-morning workout. Here are the workouts I did and the amount of coffee I drank.

Sunday (9 a.m.): hot yoga; 3 oz. store-bought cold brew (about 60 mg caffeine)
Monday (5:45 a.m.): CrossFit; 4 oz. store-bought cold brew (about 70 mg caffeine)
Tuesday (6:30 a.m.): Kayla Itsines's BBG at home; 4 oz. store-bought cold brew (about 70 mg caffeine)
Wednesday (5:45 a.m.): CrossFit; 5 oz. store-bought cold brew (about 80 mg caffeine)
Thursday: rest
Friday (5:45 a.m.): CrossFit; 6 oz. strong-ass coffee my husband made (must have been like 120 mg of caffeine or more!)
Saturday (8:30 a.m.): hot yoga; 4 oz. watered-down strong-ass coffee (about 70 mg caffeine)

How I Felt

Those first few days, I felt really, really good. My brain felt more awake, and I had tons of energy right away, which lasted for the entire workout. I felt strong and especially psyched to work out. My CrossFit buddy even noticed and said I was even more chatty than usual, which says a lot since the class is at 5:45 a.m.! Yoga felt good, and so did my home BBG workout.

I will say that throughout the week, I felt more hungry than usual. I continued with my normal eating window of noon until 7 p.m., but I was starting to feel hungry around 9:30/10 a.m., when normally I don't feel hungry until noon. I drank a lot of water on those mornings, as well as tea, but didn't have anymore coffee.

The Scary Thing That Happened

Since I was feeling so good on Friday, I decided to drink a couple more ounces than I had been — six instead of four. I'm not really used to drinking coffee but I've never experienced any negative side effects from the caffeine, so I just assumed more would be better, right? Wrong. Scary wrong.

I pounded those six ounces at 5:45 a.m., which was a little stronger than the coffee I had been drinking at the beginning of the week. We were working on snatches that day and about 20 minutes into the workout, I started to feel uncomfortably jittery. My arms were shaking, my heart was racing, and I felt like I couldn't grip the bar.

My coach, Jade, even noticed and said, "Sugar, don't be afraid of the bar. Just get under it and punch it up!" I said to myself, "You're strong, be confident," as I went to snatch the bar up, but I just couldn't straighten my arms. And this was a weight I was used to snatching. It's like my muscles weren't getting the message from my brain, and my body didn't feel like it was working right. I almost dropped the bar, and it was pretty scary to feel that out of control.

I put the bar down, drank some water, and the feeling lasted another five minutes or so, then I felt much better. Thankfully I was able to perform the 16-minute WOD feeling like myself.

Will I Keep It Up?

It seems like there's a delicate balance for me when it comes to the amount of caffeine that makes me feel peppy and the amount that makes me feel jumpy and edgy. Since my workout performance didn't improve that much, and that Friday experience of having too much coffee was so scary, I'm going to save my coffee sipping for post-workout.