Question regarding caffeine consumption.

[IshmaelMcCulligan]

I'm currently running the Power building 2 program and on a program like this I typically (read, always) take caffeine (200-300mg) before the gym on the four main lifting days, but not on the GPP days. I take caffeine so frequently because I lift after work and if I don't take caffeine I often feel like I'm in a haze and generally unmotivated.

However I find that some days I feel super gassed and higher rep sets especially on squats are really hard to recover from between sets and I just feel "off" in general.

Is there a chance that this is caused by an over accumulation of stress due to consuming caffeine before the gym so frequently? Am I better off kicking the caffeine, or are these off days just to be expected?

Also not sure how much it matters but I tend to take the caffeine at 2pm, start lifting around 4:30pm and am in bed by 10pm, and I get 7-7.5 hours of sleep a night.

[Austin Baraki]

I would probably not blame this on the caffeine alone, as there are lots of factors that can contribute to this. Variations in sleep quality, daily life stress, training fatigue, expectations, and even just how conditioned you are / how good you are at high-rep sets could all factor into this.

[IshmaelMcCulligan]

Okay, I'll try not to read so much in to my performance on those off days then. Thanks for the response, Austin.