The effects of varying doses of caffeine on cardiac parasympathetic reactivation following an acute bout of anaerobic exercise in recreational athletes

To examine the effects of varying doses of caffeine on autonomic reactivation following anaerobic exercise. Recreationally active males ( N = 20; 24 ± 2y) participated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study where participants ingested: [1] Control (CON; no supplement), [2] a non-caffeinated placebo (PLA), [3] 3-mg∙kg − 1 of caffeine (CAF3) or [4] 6-mg∙kg − 1 of caffeine (CAF6) prior to Wingate testing. Parasympathetic (lnRMSSD, primary outcome) and global HRV (lnSDNN, secondary outcome) were assessed at rest (i.e., pre-ingestion), 45-min post-ingestion, and 5-min and 35-min post-exercise recovery. We used a GLM to assess mean (95% CI) changes from pre-ingestion baseline. Overall, we observed a significant trend for lnRMSSD and lnSDNN ( both , p = 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.745). Forty-five minutes after treatment ingestion, we observed a significant increase in lnRMSSD for CAF3 (0.15 ms, 95%CI, 0.07,0.24) and CAF6 (0.16 ms, 95%CI, 0.06,0.25), both being significant ( both , p < 0.004) vs. CON (− 0.02 ms, 95%CI, − 0.09,0.04). Five-minutes after exercise, all treatments demonstrated significant declines in lnRMSSD vs. baseline ( all , p < 0.001). After 35-min of recovery, lnRMSSD returned to a level not significantly different than baseline for CAF3 (0.03 ms, 95%CI, − 0.05, 0.12) and CAF6 (− 0.03 ms, 95%CI, − 0.17, 0.10), while PLA (− 0.16 ms, 95%CI, − 0.25, − 0.06) and CON (− 0.17 ms, 95%CI, − 0.28, − 0.07) treatments remained significantly depressed. A similar pattern was also observed for SDNN. Caffeine ingestion increases resting cardiac autonomic modulation and accelerates post-exercise autonomic recovery after a bout of anaerobic exercise in recreationally active young men. However, no differences between caffeine doses on cardiac autonomic reactivity were observed.