The effect of aerobic exercise and caffeine supplementation on the cognitive performance and balance of college student-athletes recovered from COVID-19

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 virus is viewed as one of the defining crises of the current era, with various adverse ramifications for sports performance.Aim: The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of aerobic exercise and caffeine supplementation on the cognitive performance and balance of college student-athletes recovered from COVID-19.Materials and Methods: Forty male student-athletes aged between 18 to 25 years from the Imam Khomeini International University of Qazvin were randomly assigned to four groups: 1. exercise + caffeine supplementation, 2. aerobic exercise + placebo, 3. aerobic exercise, and 4. control, in a pre-test post-test design. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to check the normality of data distribution and covariance analysis was used for inter-group comparison.Results: The ANCOVA analysis showed significant differences in cognitive performance and balance among the four groups (P 0.05). Pairwise comparisons using the Bonferroni post-hoc test showed statistically significant differences in cognitive performance and balance between the aerobic exercise + caffeine group versus the aerobic exercise + placebo group (P 0.05) and the aerobic exercise versus the control group (P 0.05). Also, there was significant differences in mean cognitive performance and balance indices between AE+CAF versus CONT (P 0.005) and AE+CAF versus AE (P 0.005).Conclusion: The results of this study show that aerobic exercise with caffeine supplementation can improve cognitive performance and balance of student-athletes recovered from COVID-19.