We wake up, we grab a cup. We drive to work, we have a cup nestled nicely in our car drink holder. Two hours into work, we grab yet another cup with a friend and make small-talk about baseball and world affairs (and personal ones, too -- depending on how scandalous your office environment has become). Then, to top it all off, we drink about two to three more cups before the day finally comes to a close.

Now, if I was talking about cups of water, I would salute you for your smart health decision and even encourage you to drink a few more cups per day. But, since I'm not talking about water, I obviously am referring to the only other liquid we seem willing to consume in such mass quantities: Coffee.

Okay, fine, so we drink a lot of coffee. More than ever, actually. And while drinking caffeinated beverages does reportedly have some specific health benefits, there is just as much information out there pointing to the detriments from doing so. As I mentioned in a recent post, there have been somewhere around 21,000 studies conducted on the effects of caffeine, yet we are still no closer to knowing for sure whether or not it is good for us. But one study, in particular, seems to stand out from many of the others, and it relates to caffeine's affect on blood flow during exercise.

According to Swiss scientists, caffeine decreases blood flow to the heart during exercise by as much as 39 percent. Yes, I said by 39 percent. Never once in my life have I claimed to have any arithmetic prowess, but still, my best attempt at number crunching tells me that if blood flow is decreased by 39 percent, you are only receiving 61 percent of your typical flow of blood to your heart. What's more, we're talking about a decrease of blood flow during exercise!!

Call me crazy, but I know that I wouldn't want to be running on a treadmill with my blood flow basically being controlled like a damned river (by the way, read that as A River Controlled by a Damn, not as A River That I Just Plain Can't Stand). The same goes for when I'm underneath a weighted bar; the last thing I need is to get light headed and have it come crashing down on me. Ooooh -- no thank you.

The science of it is as follows: as someone exercises, coronary arteries expand to allow in more oxygen-carrying blood. But, it was found in participants in the Swiss study that this process was inhibited when they consumed 200 milligrams of caffeine -- the amount in 2 cups of coffee -- an hour before working out.

Bear in mind, coffee is not the only caffeine culprit. Some teas, energy drinks, and supplements contain very high concentrations of caffeine, so be sure to check the labels of what you buy. Although caffeine is typically not listed in the same section of the label where you find carb, protein, and calorie amounts, it sometimes will be listed separately on the bottle. Sometimes, but not always.