Chocolate and Cocoa Powder: Athlete Super Foods for Better Performance

Add in the right types of chocolate to sprint faster, play longer, and recognize opponent actions faster. AKA: eat chocolate, win more!

Yum, chocolate! It’s unusual to find someone who does NOT like chocolate in some form. It’s delicious, comes in a variety of intensities from mild and sweet to dark and rich, and is the basis for many holiday traditions. Thinking about a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day? How about Halloween candy, or Christmas truffles, Easter eggs, or Day of the Dead chocolate skulls? It’s in daily life as well, in rich and creamy French chocolate truffles and Nanaimo bars. Katharine Hepburn’s brownies. Cocoa powder becomes hot chocolate. The dish of Hershey’s kisses on the admin’s desk. Chocolate ice cream, Mississippi mud cake, creamy chocolate mousse, mole sauce over enchiladas or in chile con carne. It’s pretty hard to NOT come across it regularly. 

Cocoa and chocolate (Theobroma cacao) come from the seeds of a tropical evergreen tree native to Central and South America.¹ While original Indigenous cultures used it as medicines, an energy source and an aphrodisiac, it’s now an extremely popular treat found in desserts, snacks and savory dishes.²In the US, an average yearly intake is about 10 pounds of chocolate per person!³ Cocoa contains around 400 biologically active plant chemicals, including polyphenols, that have beneficial effects in humans. Effects are also seen in athletes, leading to improved performance and recovery! But beware – these plant chemicals are easily damaged during processing so choose your chocolate wisely. Also, chocolate milk is great for recovery (carbs, protein, consumed after a workout) but doesn’t have enough chocolate or of the useful polyphenols. Sorry. 

What’s what: Cacao vs. cocoa vs. chocolate

Per the CFR Title 21, Chapter 1, Subchapter B, Part 163: Cacao Products⁴

• Cacao nibs: Cured, cleaned, dried, and cracked cacao beans. May or may not have alkali ingredients. Generally small, crunchy bits of beans. 
• Chocolate liquor: Cured, cleaned cacao beans ground into a paste. May have additional cacao fat or cocoa added.
• Cocoa butter: cacao fat. 
• Cocoa: the powdered remains of the cacao beans after part of the fat has been removed. It comes in three varieties.
  • Breakfast cocoa: At least 22% fat. May have pH balancers as well as spices, flavorings, salt, but NO imitators of chocolate, milk or butter flavors. 
  • Cocoa: As above, except a fat content between 10 and 22% fat.
  • Lowfat cocoa: As above, with less than 10% fat.
• Chocolate: Chocolate liquor combined with at least one sweetener and additional optional ingredients, including spices, flavorings, salt, dairy (cream, milkfat, butter, milk in many forms) but NO imitators of chocolate, milk or butter flavors, and emulsifiers.
  • Sweet chocolate: At least 15% chocolate liquor and less than 12% milk solids. 
  • Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate: Sweet chocolate, but at least 35% chocolate liquor.
  • Milk chocolate: At least 10% chocolate liquor, 3.39% milkfat and 12% total milk solids, plus any additional sweeteners. 
  • White chocolate: Cacao fat with optional dairy ingredients or sweeteners. No cocoa. 

How to Consume Chocolate

Don’t buy candy.

Seriously, get AT LEAST 70% cacao chocolate. Better yet, buy chocolate or cocoa powder made with the goal of preserving as many cocoa polyphenols as possible, such as those from FlavaNaturals. If you’re using cocoa powder, avoid Dutch process cocoa.

Consume some chocolate or cocoa powder regularly so you have consistent access to the useful compounds mentioned above. Fit those calories and fat into your training menus so you can meet your performance goals.

Enjoy the process and don’t feel guilty for eating either chocolate or cocoa powder regularly. They’re not “bad” foods. There’s no moral injury incurred when enjoying chocolate. 

Benefits: Better sports performance

Dose Required

Most of the studies use a dose of ~500 mg of cocoa flavanols for varying lengths of time.^5,6,7 Patel’s acute study of recreational athletes had four groups with different amounts in each group: 88 mg (the control group), 406 mg, 746 mg or 1060 mg. None of the groups showed an effect two hours after consuming the cocoa flavanols.⁸

Better Heart Health

In longer studies, cocoa flavanols improve vascular function². Cocoa supplementation has small but significant effects on blood flow around the body, leading to more oxygen to the muscles and better performance – especially in endurance sports.⁹ In this case, the improvements are independent of the endurance training. In a different study, time trial results did not change, highlighting the difficulties of drawing conclusions between study populations and designs! 

Better Speed

For power/mixed athletes, martial artists achieved both better distance and final velocity in a Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test level 1.¹⁰

Faster Recovery

There’s also less oxidative stress, so less damage to repair after training. In a study of elite vs. amateur athletes, the elite athletes had such high levels of oxidative stress that they couldn’t effectively recover from the damage.¹¹ Cocoa flavanols helped! A study in elite soccer players showed more antioxidant power as well as significantly less muscle damage.¹²

Better Body Composition

Flavanols can help modify the amount of carbs vs. fat burned during exercise.² This leads to more oxygen delivery, faster recovery and, in non-power sports, greater adaptability in pacing.  Better leptin levels and lower body fat in endurance athletes⁷, backed up by a population wide study of NHANES data.³

No GI Issues (that weren’t already known)

In a study of GI complaints, 10 weeks of 5 g of cocoa/day did not improve GI comfort or symptoms in male endurance athletes.⁶ It did change the gut microbiota slightly, however.

The FDA just approved some qualified health claims (2/3/23) about cocoa and dark chocolate. They acknowledge that the above effects are true, but small.¹³

Benefits: Improved cognition and mood

Better mood and reaction time

Taking cocoa in some form before training could result with small but noticeable improvements in reaction time, knowing what your teammates and your opposition are going to do on the field, and having better aim, all while keeping your mind in the game and not getting distracted. Other studies looking at mood showed better moods, less depression and anxiety. Can’t beat that!

Better brain blood flow, better performance

In two small studies looking at the effects of cocoa flavanols around exercise, cocoa flavanols increased blood flow to the brain – particularly oxygenated hemoglobin – before exercise while the exercise itself caused more blood flow during and after exercise.¹⁴ Even given before exercise, cocoa improved performance on a single cognitive task. Cocoa and exercise together improved reaction times and brain adaptations after exercise. Cocoa flavanols also improve brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), key to long-term memory formation. Look for less mental fatigue, better executive and cognitive function while doing hard things, and better attention and spatial awareness.

Issue: Treating cocoa and chocolate to retain polyphenols and not destroy them. ¹

Buy chocolate specifically made to retain the useful plant compounds! FlavaNaturals is a great place to start. 

The roasting step reduces polyphenol concentration, as they degrade with heat. The hotter and longer the exposure, the lower the amount of beneficial compounds are present at the end. 

Conching, the process of making chocolate smooth and creamy while getting rid of off flavors, also reduces polyphenol content, mostly due to evaporation of volatile compounds. 

Dutching, or alkalization, or increasing the pH into a basic range of 7-8, is used to make cocoa powder darker, more dissolvable and change the taste. This gives bakers a broader range of chocolate flavors to use in their creations. However, this causes breakdown and polymerization of the flavonoids and other polyphenols, so they’re effectively useless. Studies show losses between 38 and 98%, depending on the study and the specific polyphenol being examined. 

How the key compounds work: catechin, epicatechin and theobromine¹

These plant chemicals influence cell pathways related to basic functions and cell signaling. The more you consume, the better your cells and tissues work! Catechin and epicatechin are flavanols, while theobromine is a methylxanthine. 

Need faster recovery after workouts AND results? Theobromine, epicatechin, and catechin impact antioxidant pathways. They activate the Nrf2 transcription factor that turns on multiple antioxidant responses, including increasing glutathione. These pathways decrease oxidative stress, but don’t squash the response entirely so you still get adaptations from the training. 

Cocoa compounds improve cardiovascular health. Epicatechin, catechin, and theobromine impact nitric oxide (NO) levels in the body. NO causes blood vessels to relax a bit, allowing for better blood flow to tissues, as well as improved delivery of whatever the blood is carrying. Think more nutrients, more energy, more removal of waste! They improve platelet function to normalize blood clotting. 

These great chemicals also improve cognitive function and cognitive reserve (great for masters athletes). These compounds and their metabolites show up in the brain, specifically the portions that control learning and memory. Some studies show better executive function and overall brain performance. Theobromine stimulates BDNF, a key chemical that increases mood as well as learning and memory. Want better reasoning ability, reaction time, language skills, or memory?

Theobromine impacts fatty acid metabolism, mitochondrial function, and energy metabolism. It also reduces the formation of new fat cells in adipose tissue but stimulates the browning of adipose tissue, which helps humans burn energy and increase their metabolic rate (slightly).

Including dark chocolate or cocoa powder designed to retain the useful flavanols in their menu is a good option for the athlete who will both enjoy and appreciate the benefits! 

Need Help Including Chocolate in Your Menu?

Contact Dr. Schubert here to get expert nutrition information or discuss your favorite chocolate bar. Need long-term help in improving your training menus? Get nutrition coaching! Interested in making the best mocha you can? Read more here! Have too much low-quality chocolate that you need to get discard? Find out what to do with unwanted (or wanted but not really needed) candy. 

References

1. Goya L, Kongor JE, de Pascual-Teresa S. From Cocoa to Chocolate: Effect of Processing on Flavanols and Methylxanthines and Their Mechanisms of Action. Int J Mol Sci. 2022;23(22):14365. Published 2022 Nov 18. doi:10.3390/ijms232214365
2. Sorrenti V, Fortinguerra S, Caudullo G, Buriani A. Deciphering the Role of Polyphenols in Sports Performance: From Nutritional Genomics to the Gut Microbiota toward Phytonutritional Epigenomics. Nutrients. 2020;12(5):1265. Published 2020 Apr 29. doi:10.3390/nu12051265
3. Smith L, Grabovac I, Jackson SE, et al. Chocolate Consumption and Indicators of Adiposity in US Adults. Am J Med. 2020;133(9):1082-1087. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.01.020
4. FDA: US Food and Drug Administration. Code of Federal Regulations Title 21, Chapter 1, Subchapter B, Part 163: Cacao Products. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=163. Last updated November 29, 2022. Accessed on February 1, 2023. 
5. Tsukamoto H, Suga T, Ishibashi A, et al. Flavanol-rich cocoa consumption enhances exercise-induced executive function improvements in humans. Nutrition. 2018;46:90-96. doi:10.1016/j.nut.2017.08.017
6. Tabone M, García-Merino JA, Bressa C, et al. Chronic Consumption of Cocoa Rich in Procyanidins Has a Marginal Impact on Gut Microbiota and on Serum and Fecal Metabolomes in Male Endurance Athletes. J Agric Food Chem. 2022;70(6):1878-1889. doi:10.1021/acs.jafc.1c07547
7. Ángel García-Merino J, Moreno-Pérez D, de Lucas B, et al. Chronic flavanol-rich cocoa powder supplementation reduces body fat mass in endurance athletes by modifying the follistatin/myostatin ratio and leptin levels. Food Funct. 2020;11(4):3441-3450. doi:10.1039/d0fo00246a
8. Patel RK, Brouner J, Allgrove JE, Spendiff O. The influence of different concentrations of flavanol chocolate bars under acute supplement conditions on exercise and performance. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2020;120(9):2075-2082. doi:10.1007/s00421-020-04389-3
9. d’Unienville NMA, Blake HT, Coates AM, Hill AM, Nelson MJ, Buckley JD. Effect of food sources of nitrate, polyphenols, L-arginine and L-citrulline on endurance exercise performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2021;18(1):76. Published 2021 Dec 29. doi:10.1186/s12970-021-00472-y
10. Ruiz-Iglesias P, Gorgori-González A, Massot-Cladera M, Castell M, Pérez-Cano FJ. Does Flavonoid Consumption Improve Exercise Performance? Is It Related to Changes in the Immune System and Inflammatory Biomarkers? A Systematic Review of Clinical Studies since 2005. Nutrients. 2021;13(4):1132. Published 2021 Mar 30. doi:10.3390/nu13041132
11. D’Amico A, Cavarretta E, Fossati C, et al. Platelet Activation Favours NOX2-Mediated Muscle Damage in Elite Athletes: The Role of Cocoa-Derived Polyphenols. Nutrients. 2022;14(8):1558. Published 2022 Apr 8. doi:10.3390/nu14081558
12. Cavarretta E, Peruzzi M, Del Vescovo R, et al. Dark Chocolate Intake Positively Modulates Redox Status and Markers of Muscular Damage in Elite Football Athletes: A Randomized Controlled Study. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2018;2018:4061901. Published 2018 Nov 21. doi:10.1155/2018/4061901
13. US Food and Drug Administration, FDA Announces Qualified Health Claim for High Flavanol Cocoa Powder and Reduced Risk of Cardiovascular Disease. https://www.fda.gov/food/cfsan-constituent-updates/fda-announces-qualified-health-claim-cocoa-flavanols-high-flavanol-cocoa-powder-and-reduced-risk. February 3, 2023. 
14. Kennedy DO, Wightman EL. Mental Performance and Sport: Caffeine and Co-consumed Bioactive Ingredients. Sports Med. 2022;52(Suppl 1):69-90. doi:10.1007/s40279-022-01796-8