Study finds a synergy between caffeine and music for athletes

An experimental study of elite male taekwondo athletes in Tunisia found that combining low doses of caffeine with warm-up music enhances their performance in simulated taekwondo combat. Athletes who drank a caffeine drink and listened to music before the fight had extended attack times and increased attack and defensive actions compared to those who just listened to music or just took caffeine. Other indicators of effectiveness were improved as well. The paper was published in Psychopharmacology.

Taekwondo is a Korean martial art that emphasizes fast, powerful kicks, precise strikes, and disciplined mental focus. It combines elements of self-defense, sport, and philosophy, promoting respect, perseverance, and self-control.

Performance in taekwondo depends on a mix of physical abilities, technical skills, psychological characteristics, and tactical factors. While physical abilities and technical skills are largely a matter of long-term training, psychological factors such as confidence, focus, and emotional state can change much more rapidly. They strongly affect competition outcome. Tactical judgements, deciding when and how to attack or defend, also play a major role.

Study author Slaheddine Delleli and his colleagues wanted to examine the combined effects of consuming a low dose of caffeine and listening to preferred music during warm-up on subsequent taekwondo combat outcomes and psycho-physiological responses of male taekwondo athletes. The authors hypothesized that taking a low-dose caffeine drink (3 mg / kg of caffeine) followed by listening to preferred music during warm-up would have a synergistic effect on athletes’ performance in taekwondo combat.

Study participants were 16 male taekwondo athletes who were members of the Tunisian national team or had competed in the top tier of national competition for at least five years. On average, study participants had been training taekwondo for 9 years.

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Study authors prepared two types of drinks – one containing 3 mg/kg of caffeine and one containing flour instead of caffeine (placebo). Both were administered dissolved in 200 ml of water. To prevent bias, neither the participants nor the researchers administering the drinks knew which supplement was being given. The drinks were prepared by a researcher not directly working with study participants (double blinding).

There were 6 treatment conditions – not taking a drink and not listening to music (control), taking a caffeine drink without music, taking a flour drink without music, taking a caffeine drink with music, taking a flour drink with music, and only listening to music but taking no drink. In the scope of the study, participants would first drink their assigned drink (in treatment conditions that involved a drink). 50 minutes later, they would perform a standard warm-up session with or without music (depending on the treatment condition) and then participate in simulated taekwondo combat. The fights consisted of three 2-minute rounds interspersed with 1-minute rest periods.

Each participant went through all 6 conditions in a different, randomized order. There was a 7-day pause (a “washout period”) between experimental conditions. The simulated fights were between participants in the same treatment condition – each treatment condition was completed by either 2 or 4 athletes at the same time.

Results showed that a combination of a caffeine drink and warm-up music was the most effective in enhancing participants’ combat performance. Compared to conditions that involved just a drink or just music, participants who took both caffeine and listened to music showed shortened skip and pause times, extended attack time. When undergoing the caffeine+music treatment, participants also had increased attack and defensive actions, their heart rates were reduced (suggesting greater cardiovascular efficiency), and they reported feeling better after the fight.

“Combining low dose of CAF [caffeine] and warm-up music could be an effective strategy to enhance taekwondo combat performance in male athletes,” the study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of psycho-physiological factors affecting taekwondo performance. However, it should be noted that the study participants were exclusively top male athletes. Therefore, these findings may not be generalizable to female athletes, recreational participants, or individuals from the general population.

The paper, “Combined effects of low-dose caffeine and warm-up music enhance male athletes’ performance in simulated Taekwondo combat: a double-blind, randomized crossover trial,” was authored by Slaheddine Delleli, Ibrahim Ouergui, Hamdi Messaoudi, Florin Cazan, Christopher Garrett Ballmann, Luca Paolo Ardigò, and Hamdi Chtourou.