Effects of caffeine on the rate of perceived exertion

The role of caffeine in improving performance in endurance exercises is controversial and its mechanism of action is not well understood. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of caffeine on the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) by exercising athletes. Six male non-smoking runners, aged 26.8 +/- 4.9 years (mean +/- SD), who had been in training continuously for at least two years before the experiment were studied. Mean maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) was 61.21 +/- 5.36 ml kg-1 min-1. The subjects were asked to exercise on a bicycle ergometer for 3 min each at 300 and 600 kg m min-1, after which the work load was elevated to 1200 kg m min-1 and they exercised until exhaustion. In order to evaluate the effects of caffeine, the exercise was performed twice following the ingestion of 200 ml decaffeinated coffee with and without caffeine (5 mg/kg body weight). Caffeine had no significant effect on exercise time, pulmonary ventilation, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide extraction or exchange respiratory ratio, but the RPE was significantly lower (P less than 0.05) at the work load of 1200 kg m min-1 after the ingestion of caffeine for both trials I and II. The present results suggest that metabolic acidosis and glycogen depletion were not the main causes of exhaustion.