Caffeine does not cause dehydration or harm your muscle building efforts

Dehydration is something you should avoid at all costs when trying to gain weight and build muscle. A dehydrated muscle is one that will not grow in size or mass at all. Interestingly, one of your best friends in the gym, when it comes to nutrition, is also one of the most criticized and accused of causing dehydration…caffeine.

Well, I’m here to tell you that is not the case. Caffeine stimulates your muscles to contract more forcefully and prevents the breakdown of glycogen, which is what your muscles use for energy during intense weightlifting sessions. It does this by releasing fatty acids so they can be burned during training, causing muscles to stay “fuller” and body fat to decrease.

Caffeine can also increase strength and endurance…two great things that will help you train heavier, longer, and with more reps. These are all important factors in stimulating weight gain and muscle mass. As for dehydration, as some experts have pointed out, if you were to drink 18 ounces of coffee in one sitting, you would have to urinate more than that amount in an hour for it to be considered a diuretic agent. As most Java lovers know, that just doesn’t happen in the real world (unless you have some kind of special medical condition). Research has confirmed that caffeine by itself does not cause dehydration.

Since caffeine has so many positive effects on weight training, such as increased strength and endurance, which helps to gain weight and build muscle mass naturally, and also to get rid of body fat quickly and does not cause dehydration, as many claim, I say: “For me another drink!”. And I suggest you do the same.