Can over stimulation be dangerous?

BeauMaximus

Is it possible to overstimulate your heart with something as simple as coffee and carb gel and do damage?

Normally before a 10 TT, I drink a little home made espresso about 15 mins before I start.
2 teaspoons of instant coffee and one of sugar in about 100ml of water.
May be placebo or maybe it works, but either way I think it helps me.

Last night, having not done a lot of training recently, I thought i'd up my dose a little bit, put 2 big teaspoons of coffee and 2 big ones of sugar in my espresso. Drank this 15 mins before the start but also a torq gel, which I normally only use on long rides.

I rode like a man possessed and won by 14 seconds.
Normally, i'll be back to normal after a few minutes but last night my heart rate and breathing would not come down for ages afterwards. Driving home about 40 mins after, I had shallow palpitations, my breathing was still a bit high and I was getting hot sweats.

I forgot my garmin, so can't say what the HR was, but it felt a lot higher than normal, even though my max HR on a bike is 204 anyway.

I'm only really concerned because I have this high max HR (214 running!) and worried it might go pop one day.

thanks

estampida

err excessive use of the heart causes damage - no, unless you ride like a 1980's tdf rider or have a history within the family

arrhythmic problems caused by caffeine and such - yes

also if your hyper stimulated you will notice more (anxiety and so on...)

and maybe being that stimulated over time may cause health problems as you cannot relax, hypertension and the like

jgsi

Just imagine yourself you are at your GP now and you have just explained this to him or her.
What do you think you would be hearing back?

amaferanga

Bugger all caffeine in 2 teaspoons of instant coffee. There's more in a single shot of real espresso.

ut_och_cykla

Espresso doesn't have stupid amounts of caffiene - probably about the same as two big teaspoonsfull of instant. Drip coffee has much more...
also unlikely you were fired up enough by taking it 15 mins before the start - more likley that it was affecting you afterwards -BUT the reaction you noticed could also have been a reaction to going really hard. I understand that taking illegal stimulants like amphetamines can kill you precisely because your heart beats so fast it can't synchronise the beating process properly and fails to supply oxygen to the body. How much caffiene you'd have to take to cause that kind of damage? No idea. LD50 for caffiene is 192mg/kg body weight!!

SBezza

amaferanga wrote:

Bugger all caffeine in 2 teaspoons of instant coffee. There's more in a single shot of real espresso.

+1 to this, there isn't a great deal in a gel either to be honest. Over stimulation could be dangerous but then you would be talking about caffiene in the realms of 2000mg + doses, you probably had near the 100mg mark I would have thought, similar to 2 cans of coke.

Perhaps being out of breath for longer is a sympton of racing incredibly hard with very little recent training

keef66

Some people are more sensitive to caffeine than others. I can trigger palpitations relatively easily by overdoing my pre ride coffee. (this is bimbling up the road, not racing) It feels a bit odd but I'm told it's harmless

ut_och_cykla

I have a problem with some kinds of coffee - caffiene tabs, coca cola, tea and espresso no problem but Swedish drip coffee - kappow! Heart & guts go haywire.

BeauMaximus

Thanks, puts my mind at ease a bit to see how high the dangerous doses are.

I am quite sensitive to things though, so I think it had something to do with it.
A whole bag of haribo will make me feel like s##t for a couple of hours and I have also had a similar experience before from taking a guerana tablet one morning, just walking along.

It probably was also partly to do with racing harder than normal as you say sbezza.
I got my self a bit psyched up before hand, which seems to have worked!

Are you doing the 12 on 2nd?

cougie

Do you do without caffeine in between races ? For best effects you should. If you're still drinking tea/coffee/cola then its probably just acting as a placebo ?

Herbsman

cougie wrote:

Do you do without caffeine in between races ? For best effects you should.

Why?

Habituation / Tolerance

Most critically, the effects of caffeine can only be properly ascertained with an understanding of tolerance. Some effects of caffeine are decreased after a few days of continuous use (increased heart rate & blood pressure), but other effects (alertness) are not. A recent cycling study (Irwen et al., 2011) showed no difference between regular and non-users of caffeine; both groups had the same performance benefit.

http://theroadtocat1.com/2012/02/15/caf ... rformance/

cougie wrote:

If you're still drinking tea/coffee/cola then its probably just acting as a placebo ?

If it's improving his performance, why does it matter if it's placebo effect or not? As long as he's not risking damage to his health then surely the increase in performance makes it worthwhile regardless of how it works...