Research

Hormonal

Acute ingestion of 6 mg/kg caffeine significantly enhances total sprint work and peak power during prolonged intermittent-sprint exercise in team-sport athletes without increasing the rate of fatigue development.

Take 6 mg of caffeine per kg of body weight about one hour before your game or high-intensity training. For a 80kg athlete, this is 480mg (roughly 3-4 cups of coffee or 2-3 standard caffeine pills). This dose has been shown to increase your total sprinting work and peak power by roughly 7-8% during a typical team sport match without making you tire out faster. Be aware that you might feel 'amped' or restless, but this does not appear to negatively impact performance in trained athletes.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
This study revealed that acute caffeine ingestion can significantly enhance performance of prolonged, intermittent-sprint ability in competitive, male, team-sport athletes.
Knut Schneiker et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2006

Why this rating

Double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized design with a relevant population (team-sport athletes), though small sample size (n=10).

Source

Effects of Caffeine on Prolonged Intermittent-Sprint Ability in Team-Sport Athletes

Knut Schneiker et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2006

DOI 10.1249/01.mss.0000188449.18968.62

crossover · n=10Cited 204×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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