energy drinks and shooting

[taliv]

my vice is in an average day i drink over 100 oz of Mt Dew or the like. like most people with coffee, it's kind of a crutch to keep alert and focused for my day job, which often has very long hours.

when i'm shooting HP though, i have to stop drinking caffeine about two days ahead of time to be competitive.

so the question is, (since just getting more sleep isn't really an option at the moment, sadly) do any of the so called 'energy drinks' that are popular work without making you too jumpy/shakey to shoot? it seems they all contain an absurd amount of caffeine. I haven't tried any yet.


on a related note... if you compete in some precision sport (bullseye, HP, smallbore, BR, etc) do you alter your diet the days of/prior to a match? if so, what do you do differently?

 

[P95Carry]

My small take (as a ''Dew'' addict") - stick to the usual routine!!!

Your body gets used to caffeine ingestion and IMO reducing that just for a shoot could be counter-productive. Only my 2c.

Re ''energy drinks'' - much seems geared to sugar - leaving aside caffeine aspect. If you load your system with a high sugar level your body says - ''hey - sugar peak - dump insulin''!!

The response can be so dramatic that - once sugar is mopped up - you end up hyper-insulinemic and so low on sugar!!!

I am not happy with ''energy'' drinks at all - big hype IMO.

Before a shoot - do not stop ''Dew'' input but keep it moderate. Eat a sandwich or two and the starch in those will be slowly broken down to sugars - which will not produce the over response of insulin.

Athletes who ingest glucose pre a race do themselves a disservice - because of this insulin ''knee-jerk'' effect - a slow release of carb's from lower sugars (starches) is way better.

 

[Lupinus]

keep in mind a lot of energy drinks do not rely on sugar or caffine but rather on a huge dose of B(I think)6 which is one of the vitamins that gives a boost to your metabolisim.

As to 100oz of MD boy are the people who make diabetic drugs gonna love you in a few years lmao

 

[bogie]

Energy drinks?

Buzz city. Give a coupla Red Bull's to a six year old sometime...

Just not with me in the same damn room.

As for competition? I make sure to drink to excess the evening before, and to start the morning with at least a half pot of damn fine coffee...

Then again, a lot of the competitors do the same.

 

[Geronimo45]

I find that scalding water outperforms caffeine. Caffeine will work some days, not work on others. Boiling water always works.

 

[.38 Special]

I also noticed that caffeine would really wreck my shooting for a day or so. I would quit 24 hours before a competition -- if I didn't, my scores would usually drop about 2 or 3%.

Eventually I quit caffeine altogether. I'd gotten awfully tired of trying to self-regulate between fatigue, alertness, jumpiness, and headache. Quitting was a real bastard, though.

Red Bull, BTW, doesn't give me wings so much as simply make me twitch. I can't understand why anyone would want to drink the stuff.

 

[10-Ring]

Wow, the 2X I tried to quit caffeine I had some serious caffeine headaches in the first 2 days...it's amazing you still wanted to compete.
I would recommend maybe curb your intake the day of your shoot to keep the edge off but not get jittery.

 

[Skywarp]

I drink the triple size rockstar energy drinks. Shaking while shooting isnt that bad.


just average where the front dot is.

 

[Jackal]

Do what I do. I totally skip the caffeine drinks, except the occasional irish one, and head right to the "No Doze". I take one of those little wonder pills and I am alert and agressive for hours. However, it does impede my pistol shooting skills. Kinda funny though, I do some of my best rifle shooting with a caffeine high.

 

[fugi]

caffeine causes cardiovascular constriction, requiring a more rapid heartbeat, and causes arrhythmia when over 250mg is consumed. 100oz at 55mg per 12oz puts you over that. you can cut down to a more reasonable ammount and maintain awareness without shaking.

 

[mrmeval]

Not a shooting mantra

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

 

[mrmeval]

Caffeine does several things all of them bad for a shooter. It causes shaking even at small doses there are minute muscle movements. At higher doses the shaking is more pronounced.

Because caffiene is a diuratic you will lose water and this may cause an electrolyte imbalance that can lead to hand, leg and other cramping. I've had it and it may be a form of hypocalcemia but I'm not sure. I'd been up for too many hours and it is severely unpleasant. Plain water will take care of it eventually but don't drink too much at one time.

Sodas can lead to hypocalcemia a very severe and painful condition with severe cramping and muscle damage as s symptom
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/inside.asp?AID=2004&UID
I'd just found the soda link and am not sure how much or how long you need to have been drinking it for the effects to occur or how severe they are.

Weighlifters will drink coffee to cause this to happen as they believe the damage from the cramping causes faster muscle gain. It is believed by them that involuntary spasms are able to overcome the pain threshold and rip muscle tissue which is then made stronger when repaired. While some muscle damage does causes an increase in strength with healing I know of no study that documents the effects, good or bad, of coffee or caffeine on muscle building. And have no idea of the long term effects.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

mrmeval

. . . Whose handle could be Duncan Idaho . . .

 

[230RN]

I used to just cut back on caffiene the day before --not quit completely, just cut a couple of cups out. The AM of the match, I'd have one cup only. This also helped reduce anxiety about having to take a whiz while down in the pits.

Not that I was such a great shot anyhow.

This thread reminds me of the old saw about Voltaire.

He drank twenty cups of coffe a day and lived till he was eighty.

Wait, no. Maybe it was eighty cups a day and he lived till he was twenty...

I forget which.

 

[Manedwolf]

Most "energy drinks" are just marketing comeons, really. The ingredients are less then five cents worth of mostly high fructose corn syrup and water, with food dye, caffiene, a bit of flavoring agent and a miniscule few milligrams of "vitamins". You'd get far more vitamin B6 and B12 by eating a small handful of blueberries.

The whole "energy drink" thing started with the raves in the 90's, where people made "smart drinks". The thing is, those really WERE smart drinks. They were usually a blend of fruit juices with added vitamins, electrolytes, co-enzymes, herbal stimulants and such, made in a blender, meant to give you energy to dance all night. Then soda company executives got the idea to capitalize on this trend, and started repackaging their sodas in smaller cans with all sorts of marketing meant to imply that they were the same sort of thing in a can. They weren't. They aren't.

The only effects that drinking all that high-fructose corn syrup every day will have is to cause you to gain weight and to dramatically increase your chances of developing adult onset diabetes, but that's about it.

 

[cracked butt]

Red Bull, BTW, doesn't give me wings so much as simply make me twitch. I can't understand why anyone would want to drink the stuff.

Its the only stuff that makes Jaegermeister somewhat palatable.

I try to avoid anything with caffeine or loads of sugar a day or so before a match. It might give me a headache to cut down on caffeine for a day or two, but I usually get a mild headache from shooting anyhow- probably mostly from eye strain.

 

[KC&97TA]

I routinely qualify Expert on the USMC KD courses, I'm in the same boat, I suck; Rock Star, Red Bull and MT Dew... like it's cool and smoke about a pack durring the working hours... I don't shake till I get home and cut my bad habbits around the wife.

I tell the shooters that come thought my school house to do what ever it is that they routinely do, but stay consistant at it.

This is bad to say and I'll get flamed, but I shoot great after getting drunk the night before, oh... when you have an acheing head ache and are 1/2 stick to your stomach, you really pay attention to what you're doing

 

[Wesson Smith]

I'm a big coffee drinker, up until about 10:00 AM, then I'm done. I've made the mistake of going to the range in the morning shortly after my coffee "fix". For me, I found that anything even remotely resembling a respectable shot grouping was absolutely out of the question. Try an experiment sometime, if you are large into caffeine. Try dry-firing a handgun at a target with a good contrasting background, after you've loaded up, so to speak. Personally, I can actually see my front sight wavering, especially one-handed. The mixture just doesn't work at all, in my case.

 

[DogBonz]

Research shows a little caffine is good for you

a cup or two of coffee's worth impoves memory and muscle function. Too much is not beneficial, though.

 

[RH822]

Its the only stuff that makes Jaegermeister somewhat palatable.

6 shots of Jim Beam work's pretty well too, however it does tend to make standing somewhat of a challenge.

 

[HSMITH]

I drink a pot of coffee every day before leaving the house. I also drink a Monster Low Carb energy drink on the way to the match most days. I shoot action pistol type events and there just isn't time to shake or anything else, fast twitch muscles on 'high' and explosive movements are the name of the game.

Changing your normal routine is far worse in my experience than a little caffiene.

 

[taliv]

thanks for the replies, all. The reason I've avoided the energy drinks is because i figured they were either a scam or that there might be long-term bad effects if there is some 'active ingredient'. neither of those are good. (not that massive amounts of Mt Dew are particularly good either, but at least i know what i'm getting)

maybe i'll just have to make my new years resolution to cut off caffeine until after camp perry. fortunately, i don't get the headaches others report when i quit for a few days, so the only withdrawal i'll go through is sleepwalking through january.

 

[Manedwolf]

i figured they were either a scam or that there might be long-term bad effects if there is some 'active ingredient'.

There have been some. Ginseng can cause heart murmurs in some people predisposed to that, and some drinks used to contain downright idiotic things like ephedra, which can dangerously raise blood pressure, or creatine monohydrate, which should ONLY be used in measured amounts in a precise regimen as planned by a professional, licensed fitness nutritionist. Guarana berry can also "amp" some people to the point of nervous hypertension.

 

[Headless]

Caffeine is great. Mtn dew is evil. I know, i used to be truly addicted to it. 12-14 cans a day, plus 3-5 bottles of BAWLS and 3-4 AMPs. That **** is purely evil and will turn you diabetic if you keep it up. I was on the brink; always felt thirsty and the only thing that cured the 'thirst' was to chug sugar. I remember having a real need to drink mtn dew or i went through the shakes, felt like crap, etc. My normal routine was to chug one, drink one through about 15 minutes. Get next, chug it, then sip on the fourth for a half hour before repeating the entire thing. That much corn syrup will give your digestive system a run for it's money too. I'm sure i'd be totally ****ed if it wasn't for the fact that i grew up without ANY sugar intake and never drank soft drinks until i was ~15-16. I figure i made up for my lack thereof and then some.

 

[cmidkiff]

I've got just one question...

Do you quit drinking all that caffeine for a couple days before you need to use a weapon in self defense, as well?

Hmmmmm....