Does caffeine affect muscle development?

Hello Combat Kid,

A very interesting study in 2008 compared a simple maltodextrin (placebo) to an energy drink containing branched chain amino acids, creatine, taurine, caffeine, and glucuronolactone. The results showed that when the caffeine drink was consumed 10 minutes before resistance exercise, it can enhance acute exercise performance by increasing the number of repetitions performed and the total volume of exercise. The enhanced exercise performance resulted in a significantly greater increase in both growth hormone and insulin concentrations, indicating an augmented anabolic hormone response to pre-training energy drink. Whilst this is not specific for caffeine, caffeine was a part of it, therefore I would suggest that a low dose of caffeine could help your muscle grow.

However, I also know of a study that showed to much caffeine can significantly reduce growth hormone response to exercise. So its basically a balance.

Hello Mitchell,

I was talking to Mark Gilbert about this question actually. The problem when growth hormone gets measured is that growth hormone release is pulsatile, so its hard to get an accurate measure.

The study in question from Taiwan says that if you use 6mg/kg of body weight of caffeine before you hit the weights, its halves your growth hormone response. That's far less than is in Grenade.

If you have not tried Grenade give it a go, it's not as high as this study in terms of caffeine.