2009 Studies & Research Blog

One particular supplement that many fitness or bodybuilding competitors - or even someone who is just looking to take their workout to the next level find themselves using is ephedrine, caffeine, or ephedra and caffeine paired together.

The primary benefits these supposedly offer are enhanced energy, increased metabolic rate, and decreased feelings of fatigue.  Before jumping onto any one of these supplement protocols though, it’s important to understand which will offer the primary benefits.

Recently researchers wanted to study the different effects of ingesting caffeine, ephedrine, or theri combination on muscular endurance.  The study was designed so that either caffeine (4 mg/kg), ephedra (0.8 mg/kg), a combination of both, or no supplement at all was taken in.

Ninety minutes later, the subjects were asked to perform 3 supersets consisting of a leg press (80% of 1 RM to exhaustion) followed by the bench press (70% of 1 RM to exhaustion) with two minutes of rest between each superset.

The results of the study indicated that trials that involved ephedrine ingestion caused significant increases in the mean number of reps completed for both exercises but only during the first superset. In addition to this, the systolic blood pressure reading before the exercise was completed was also significantly increased when the ephedra was taken in compared with the other two trials.

Therefore, from this study it was concluded that there was a greater magnitude of benefits when ephedrine was taken in with the caffeine than when caffeine was utilized alone. What’s more is that researchers found little difference between the ephedrine group and the ephedrine with caffeine group, indicating that caffeine may have very little impact on the benefits you are feeling.

Reference:
Bell, DG. (2003) Effects of ephedrine, caffeine, and their combination on muscular endurance. Med Sci Sports Exerc. Jun; 35(6):987-94.