Effects of caffeine supplementation on post-exercise recovery: a systematic review and three-level meta-analysis of perceptual, functional performance, physiological, and sleep outcomes.

Authors

Jie Zhang, Yuchao Li, Bo Wei, Xiupeng Li, Zhaonian Xiao, Xiuling Wu, Xing Ye, Shan Zhang

Published in

Frontiers in physiology. Volume 17. Pages 1960237. Epub Sep 17, 2026.

Abstract

To evaluate the effects of caffeine supplementation on perceptual recovery, functional performance during recovery, physiological recovery, and sleep recovery after exercise and explore potential moderators.
PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and SPORTDiscus were searched from inception to June 30, 2026, with supplementary searches of Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and reference lists. Randomized controlled trials comparing caffeine with placebo or a caffeine-free condition were included. Hedges' g was synthesized using three-level random-effects models with REML estimation and CR2 cluster-robust inference. Risk of bias and certainty of evidence were assessed using RoB 2 and GRADE, respectively.
Seventeen studies were included, of which 16 contributed 120 effect sizes to the quantitative synthesis. Caffeine had no clear effect on perceptual recovery (g = -0.161, CR2 95% CI -0.528 to 0.205, p = 0.319) or physiological recovery (g = -0.104, CR2 95% CI -0.346 to 0.138, p = 0.293), but produced a small beneficial effect on functional performance during recovery (g = -0.208, CR2 95% CI -0.393 to -0.023, p = 0.035). Caffeine was associated with poorer sleep recovery (g = 0.751, CR2 95% CI 0.244 to 1.258, p = 0.018), based on four independent studies. Effects differed across recovery domains (CR2 robust Wald F(3, 3.88) = 9.76, p = 0.028). Exploratory domain-adjusted moderator analyses were inconclusive for recovery time, caffeine dose, ingestion timing or strategy, and exercise model. Effect directions remained generally stable, but statistical significance for functional performance and sleep varied in sensitivity analyses. Model-based 95% prediction intervals crossed the null for both domains (functional: -0.444 to 0.028; sleep: -0.002 to 1.503). GRADE certainty was very low for perceptual recovery, moderate for functional and physiological recovery, and low for sleep recovery.
Caffeine appears to have domain-specific effects on post-exercise recovery. It may modestly improve functional performance during recovery, does not clearly improve perceptual or physiological recovery, and may impair sleep. Functional and sleep findings should be interpreted cautiously because statistical significance varied in sensitivity analyses and prediction intervals included the null.
https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD420261467699, identifier CRD420261467699.

PMID:
42823978
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 02 Oct 2026.

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