Quick True/False - Creatine can make you marginally faster/stronger for brief periods of time – true.
- You will gain lb’s of muscle within months thanks to creatine – false.
- Creatine can improve aerobic endurance (long distance running) – false.
- Creatine helps prolong anaerobic endurance (sprinting) – true.
- You can push an extra rep out more easily with creatine – true.
- You can double the amount of work you can do each session with creatine – false.
- Creatine will stunt or affect your growth somehow - false.
OK, before I get going I may well explain the kind of slang I use when writing papers, so before I lose any of you, here’s a quick explanation of what I mean. When I go (Generic name et al., 2000) i’m referring specifically to a reference at the very end of this post if you want to read up something in more detail.
Abbreviations I use include:
Cr = Creatine, PCr = phosphocreatine/creatine phosphate (both are the same thing), CK = creatine kinase, ATP = Adenosine triphosphate – the “energy currency” in your cells.
Anyway, onwards. I’m not going to go into the depths of respiration here, as that’ll take all day (ironically enough this took 7-8hrs or so in total to research and write this post). However as I have to start somewhere i’ll summarise briefly.
Muscle EnergyAerobic respiration can be summarised as
glucose + oxygen -> carbon dioxide + water + energy.
Sounds simple - in reality it isn’t - but what you need to know is that the energy comes in the form of ATP. For each glucose molecule broken down aerobically ideally 38 ATP molecules are made. Lots and lots of energy available. However – this process takes time.
So if you needed a quick burst of energy (a 100m sprint for example, or benching a heavy weight) there is a faster method of getting the energy required –
anaerobic respiration. This is basically 1/4 of the aerobic process, but results in pyruvate (lactate precursor) and only 2 ATP per glucose broken down. Very inefficient, but very quick. The “lactic acid” buildup (not to mention lack of energy) shows why you are limited in anaerobic bursts – cellular pH starts to drop and cramping/pain will occur if you try and push through this. Also extra oxygen is required to convert the lactate to a respireable form.
Without going too deep, ATP is a high energy state molecule that WANTS to break apart to a lower energy state - energy release is what gets used for cellular processes.
So where does creatine fit into all this?If ATP is the currency of cells, Phosphocreatine is the savings account – when energy is required for a cellular process (be this muscle contraction or pumping of ions into the cell, etc.), ATP is broken down into ADP (adenosine
diphosphate) and Phosphate, releasing energy in the process.
PCr can donate its phosphate group (and subsequent energy store) to ADP very quickly to regenerate ATP:
ADP + PCr -> ATP + Cr
Therefore, if you are sprinting, ATP in the cell will plummet, ADP will rise significantly. PCr works within milliseconds to attempt to restore the lost ATP to allow extra energy, acting s a buffer.
Creatine supplementation has been shown to increase muscular endurance and (to a certain extent) increase initial strength (Persky & Rawson, 2007) (van Loon et al., 2004) (Vandenberghe et al., 1996).Where does phosphocreatine come from?Well, like almost everything else in your system it comes from your food. Creatine or derivatives (phosphocreatine, esterfied or other chemically modified versions) are absorbed into your system and transported to the cells, where they become phosphorylated by ATP. So basically, when at rest you will naturally restore cellular ATP and PCr stores.
PCr will be present in most tissues, especially muscular and neural. Although [almost] everyone has creatine naturally present in them, supplementation can be (and in the world of sports frequently is) used to help increase performance.
Why don’t we just have more ATP in our cells instead?If you were thinking this one before you read it, it sounds like you might have a future in research as you’re thinking like a scientist.
Cellular ATP being too high results in many unpleasant things, such as interfering with normal ‘housekeeping’ processes. Too much ATP and it can start to spontaneously degrade back to ADP, and that energy needs to go somewhere – perhaps randomly introduced into a slightly unstable protein required for cellular replication? This is all hypothetical because your cells have built in stop mechanisms to prevent too much ATP being made – such as
negative feedback (ATP inhibits respiration).
Dosage and CyclingTo start off, a little fact: for those taking 10-20g of creatine as part of a ‘loading’ phase, you WILL be urinating out over 90% of this. Rarely gets more black and white than that.
Cycling began as people became concerned over the long term benefits of supplementation. Correctly, the body does lessen the extent to which it can perform
certain functions (not all) if they are no longer necessary. A prime example is lactose intolerance; when a baby is weaned, the child’s lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) levels decrease by up to and over 90%. Those that are genetically predisposed or environmentally do not experience lactose in their system can completely lose the ability to synthesise lactase (decrease 100%!), thus are said to be intolerant.
So the idea with creatine is to ‘cycle’ it such that the body is forced to synthesise creatine when supplementation ends. Funnily enough though, what many people do not realise is that creatine levels after a month of ‘cycling’ are still fractionally above normal cellular levels 4 weeks after supplementation have stopped – indicating that little synthesis in the liver has occurred. With that in mind, personally I would advise 6-8weeks between cycles to allow for Cr levels to fall to a normal physiological state before starting a new cycle.
The general dose (that I most commonly hear) is 10-20g/day for 5-7 days “loading” phase followed by ~3weeks of 3-5g/day maintenance. Sources I have read have indicated that not only are such high levels not required, but the “loading” phase (complete Cr saturation in muscles) only really takes 2-3days.
As such it is just as effective (and considered safer for numerous reasons discussed later) to consider a loading phase of 10-12g/day for 3-5 days followed by 2-3g/day for the rest of the cycle. At these levels the concentration of Cr in the muscles will fall steadily over the month (it does this with the increased 'recommended' amounts anyway), but still remain in the 15-20% above normal range near saturation.
Don’t forget, supplementing 2g/day you are probably ingesting
double the amount of creatine that you would be without supplementation – and some of that is still excreted (a normal diet tends to consist of 1-2g creatine consumed/day). It is widely recommended that a single ‘cycle’ does not last more than 2-3months.
Failing this, 5g/day of creatine for 7 days as a loading phase produces similar results to 20g/day for 3 days. It’s a personal call. Of course, bodyweight plays a factor too; if you’re over 180lbs of lean bodyweight then you will probably want to err on the side of 10g/day loading, 4-5g/day maintenance. For someone with under 150lbs lean mass, a maintenance of 2-3g/day is more than likely sufficient.
As hinted at, saturation occurs within a few days –
so within a week you should be feeling a slight benefit to your activities from supplementation.
As no long term effects study into creatine has taken place in humans to date, I cannot comment on whether or not supplementation will result in decrease in the ability to synthesise Cr; I can only speculate that it is better to play it safe rather than sorry – but of course it depends upon personal goals and aims too.
When/how should creatine be taken?-- EDITED SECTION -- From trials myself and testimonies from others, timing of consumption makes no difference. It did not affect my workout nor normal health - and others reported the same.
It is considered a good idea to
spread out consumption if taking 5g+ in one day, for example if you wanted to take 10g, 5 in the morning and 5 in the evening. Generally a teaspoon is approx. 5g of creatine.
Studies i’ve read always use water for creatine supplementation. I recommend you do the same; I can find nothing conclusive on how a fruit juice or dairy product may affect the Cr. With water, it has been shown that supplementation is effective.Improving creatine absorptionSeveral sources have indicated that
cellular intake of creatine is increased with the presence of insulin. This suggests that if a simple sugar is ingested around the same time as creatine, that the total skeletal muscle absorption should also increase slightly. That said, with a “loading phase” or similar that is Cr mostly being urinated out, muscle saturations will be reached within several days anyway. This information is probably more applicable to “maintenance” phases later in the cycle. (apologies for the lack of references here, but it was mentioned numerous times and should be easy to find amongst the list at the end of this post)
Natural CreatineCreatine can be found in red meats (beef as a prime example) as well as fish. It is also synthesised naturally in the liver from a variety of amino acid precursors (Cancela et al., 2008). It has been suggested that cooking diminished creatine content, and this has elements of truth but to all intensive purposes this is not a significant degradation, levels generally falling to 50-70% of what they would otherwise be raw (Purchas et al, 2004). This coupled with natural synthesis means that you aren’t going to get insufficient creatine in your diet easily (i.e. – you don’t HAVE to supplement!). The bottom line is vegetarians and vegans do not lack creatine in their cells, indicating that the (generally trace) amounts from other foodstuffs and synthesis in the liver is sufficient for the body's needs.
Better Creatine supplements?Is creatine monohydrate the most effective supplement? Surely creatine phosphate as that’s your physiological form of creatine? Or the “stable” creatine ethyl esters on the market? The answer: none of them.
Irritatingly enough (this is something that gets me worked up as it’s the manipulation of science as an excuse to crank up prices) the simpler the form of creatine, frequently the better. Why? Because it’s normally the cheapest. To ingest Cr into blood serum, it needs to be broken down into
exactly that – creatine! Therefore if you take phosphocreatine or any other chemically modified version, the same process will happen – it will be broken down to pure and simple creatine to be absorbed. This doesn’t mean the other derivatives will have less effective absorption rates. However normally you have to pay much more (normally 120-200%) for these substances.
So you may as well go for the cheapest creatine-only (as in not mixed with caffeine/sugars etc.) brand – 9 times out of 10, creatine monohydrate. There are NO studies published at the moment showing that any other form increases the absorption – short of the insulin-trend increases mentioned earlier from consumption with sugar.
Risks/side-effects of creatine useAlthough it is not a risk, the most prominent side effect is water retention: water is absorbed into tissues and retained to keep osmolarity in check. Basically, as a higher concentration of solutes is present in skeletal muscle (PCr increases), more water is required to keep the pressures the same. This results in a gain of weight from 1-2kg from Cr saturation.
Like all chemicals, a small minority of people will react to exposure; most of these will be minor (light cramp, intestinal interference etc.) whilst very few will be much more severe (rhabdomyolyosis, formaldehyde formation). Particularly worryingly, high levels of Cr dosage (20g+/day) for prolonged periods (10+ days) have resulted in an increase in cytotoxic chemicals being formed - showing that (like anything) too much will damage you (Poortmans t al., 2005).
Some people have reported abdominal cramps or stomach problems from creatine supplementation. Several things to advise here - reduce your consumption and see if you still get cramps. Change the fluid or food you consume creatine with and see if you still get cramps. If neither of these help, then change to another brand or type of creatine. If you still have issues then you may be unfortunate enough to be unable to supplement without this issue and that is beyond the scope of this FAQ.
An effective overview of most of the issues is summarised at:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HjU1FYjjoRcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA275&dq=Safety+of+creatine+supplementation.+Persky&ots=YUMjMnYzQ8&sig=drlupNjtnNSv_n1GtWk68-AV6R0#v=onepage&q=animal&f=falseDehydration is a common worry, and as previously mentioned is a risk – but not likely if you are sensible and purposefully aim to drink a solid 4L (8 pints) or so spread out through the day.
Risks to kidneys and liver are surprisingly hard to find in literature; more so suggestions that increased creatinine levels (a breakdown product of creatine) are related to certain renal or hepatic diseases. However, whether these are a cause or an effect I cannot comment. Again, I would suggest erring on the side of caution by not exceeding recommended doses. There definitely does seem to be some evidence of creatine supplementation triggering or inflaming existing renal conditions.
Are gains lost when coming off creatine?Short and sweet answer to this:
no. What you may notice is that you cannot lift quite as much for quite as long after coming off creatine. You will also notice a slight loss in weight as the water retained gradually leaves. These cause a mental effect which makes it seem like you’re lifting less and less. But that’s all it is; something mental. You will still be stronger and more enduring than if you hadn’t cycled, so long as you pushed yourself and made use of the extra creatine in your system.
A brief analogy (figures completely made up for example): if you can bench 50kgx5 normally to start. With creatine supplementation, within a week you can do 50kgx7. With the extra workload you can train for slightly longer and slightly more intensely each week, resulting in
slightly faster muscle growth/strength gains than otherwise. So at the end of the cycle you can bench for example 60kgx7. When you stop taking creatine this decreases over the next couple of weeks to 60kgx5. But did you get weaker? Well no, because without the supplementation in the first place you would only have managed to improve up to 57.5kgx5 because you couldn’t push yourself as hard as you could with it.
Very quick explanation, hope you can get your head round it. If not – just accept #no# and move on.
