I read a lot of books. I have Arnold’s The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, which is the first book I ever bought. I have Vince Gironda’s Wild Physique, Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, The Westside Barbell Book of Methods by Louie Simmons, Winning The Arms Race and Poliquin Principles by Charles Poliquin and also Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky Kraemer.

I do read websites from time to time, too. Most frequently…

Bodybuilding.com -The largest and most complete bodybuilding site online!

I hope you found this little entry useful.

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Creatine supplements are designed to boost anaerobic (without oxygen) performance. This means people who take part in sports which require an immense effort over a short period of time. Such sports particularly include sprinting, throwing and in particular, weight lifting.

Aerobic exercise is different, as the muscles are relying on oxygen for fuel, and the non-explosive nature means the energy demands are steady. Explosive exercises are different, unsustainable beyond a very sport period, and rely on ATP for fuel. Creatine supplements boost ATP levels meaning you have more energy at your disposal, and, are able to recover more quickly.

There are an incredible amount of creatine supplements available on the market. Some brands are more pure creatine than others whilst others contain other ingredients the manufacturers claim enhance performance further.

Like anything, everyone has their favorite and will react differently to different brands and types. When looking to invest in creatine supplements it is always smart to check out various reviews, and to remember that you usually get what you pay for.

It has to be said, some types of creatine are garbage; they contain so little creatine and so many other ingredients they can barely be marketed as creatine supplements at all. It’s recommended you stick with those which provide the most pure creatine first. For, if you were to purchase creatine supplements which were low in creatine but heavy in other ‘wonder’ ingredients and they didn’t work, you could well be put off creatine without having even experienced the real thing.

Creatine supplements work fantastic, it is a proven fact, and, most serious weight trainees who have tried creatine never go back to training without it.

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Aside from all of the unfounded scare stories of creatine, which I’ve written about in my article is creatine safe? there are some legitimate and very real creatine side effects which you need to be aware of. Don’t be alarmed – they aren’t serious or lasting, and to be honest, they are rare. I’ll now take you through each possible side effect, explain why it may occur, and what you can do to ease or avoid it without stopping your creatine supplementation.

Dehydration & Dizziness:

Dehydration during workouts – and sometimes dizziness – is often blamed on creatine. The fact is, most people – sedentary or active – don’t drink nearly enough water and experience some effects of dehydration as a result, whether taking creatine or not. Creatine can exasperate this effect if you don’t know when to take creatine and take it at the wrong time.

The wrong time – which may surprise you – is before a workout. Taking creatine before a workout is a bad idea because creatine encourages the muscles to act like a sponge and soak up water – water which, if not from drink, can only come from the body, at the expense of other internal organs.

If you’ve ever experienced even mild dehydration before you will know how quickly it can appear to come on. Well, this can happen even quicker and the symptoms be even more severe if you have a huge shift in body fluids before a training session – a training session which, I might add, will only dehydrate you further.

You may think you can simply drink more water. True, you can, but since you have no clue as to the extent fluids will be taken from your body and pumped into your muscles, you may still succumb to dehydration.

Solution: Never take creatine before a training session. Take it afterwards. As for dehydration when you aren’t training – drink more water, of course!

Muscle Cramps:

One other complaint is that sometimes creatine can cause muscle cramps. Now, dehydration is a common cause of muscle cramps. We’ve covered that. But also, some may argue that creatine can allow a person to work their muscles to such an extent that these muscles develop DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness).

I disagree. I believe creatine can only allow your muscles to work to a capacity they are capable of – albeit slightly more than usual – and the only way DOMS (which really, is what the muscle cramps are) can happen is if you go overboard. Some people take the fact they are using creatine to put their muscles through a ridiculous workload, and when they experience DOMS and resulting cramps, blame the creatine.

The truth is, overtraining is overtraining, whether you are training without creatine, with creatine, with steroids, or steroids and creatine and every other supplement and/or performance enhancing drug under the sun.

Solution: If it’s cramps from dehydration, drink water. If it’s cramps from DOMS, you are overtraining.

Gastrointestinal ‘Idiosyncrasies’:

Or in everyday terms: gut discomfort (i.e. infrequent bowel movements, constipation, diarrhoea, etc.)

Probably the most common of all reported creatine side effects is this one, to some degree or other. Some people just can’t tolerate creatine at all. Some are ok with some doses, and some are just fine no matter what. Some people naturally have a flimsy gastrointestinal setup and suffer with IBS and other complaints from below. Creatine may impact these people more, but, that’s mere speculation. Everyone is different.

You have to try it to find out how you react, end of story.

Solution: It’s worth noting that most of those who complain of issues are using a higher dose to ‘load’ (increase their creatine levels quicker). Loading is not absolutely necessary – it just saturates the muscles with creatine a little quicker – so if you experience issues when loading, simply skip a the load and take regular doses and that should help to some degree.

Conclusion:

As you can see, creatine side effects really are minor, experienced by few, and, completely reversible upon suspending usage of creatine. I hope this article has been helpful to you, and I hope you give this excellent supplement a chance.

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First, let’s first make sure the ‘rules’ are in place, or nobody is losing any fat.

There is 1 golden rule in fat loss – an unbreakable rule, in fact – which must be understood:

The Golden Rule: You will only lose fat if you are decreasing your calorie intake and/or increasing calories burned through exercise.

Your body simply cannot lose fat under any other circumstance. It’s an energy in, energy out thing. You gained fat by taking in more calories than your body needed, and now to lose fat, you need to reverse the process.

I’ll make the assumption that you are taking (or wanting to take) creatine because you are training in some anaerobic way. To make things simple, when referring to your training, I’ll assume its weight training of some kind, although this applies equally to all anaerobic training – and I’m sure you’re smart enough to adapt the equivalent principles over.

Ok. If you are adhering to the above golden rule, then taking creatine during fat loss is a great idea as it will help you lose fat quicker. I’ll explain why.

Creatine promotes lean muscle mass. Lean muscle mass is the great metabolic regulator of the body. Simply put, the more muscle mass you have, the quicker and easier you can lose fat – and keep fat off. That’s because lean muscle mass ‘taxes’ your body of calories. More muscle, means more calories burned – just by virtue of it being there. Therefore, the key to losing as much fat as you possibly can, as quickly as you can, is to look after the muscle.

You look after the muscle by continued training to remind the body that the muscle is useful to your survival. (Hey, it may be just be a hobby like running/lifting weights or whatever to you, but to your body, any physical task is seen as survival.) Failure to do so will mean you gradually lose muscle, which in turn, slows fat loss, too. This happens because you only ever stand to lose muscle whilst losing fat, because you are in calorie deficit across the board, so the secret is to make doubly sure the body knows that muscle is being used and not to touch it, but to use the fat for energy instead.

Creatine helps fat loss in two muscle-promoting ways:

1. (a) Increasing the volume of work you can get out of your muscles. E.g.: Lifting for 8 sets instead of 4. (b) Increasing the force the muscles can contract at. E.g.: Lifting heavier.
2. Enhancing muscle repair efficiency.

Now, in the case of point 1, continued training is crucial to retain the muscle mass you do have. As you gradually decrease calories, you will begin to lose some size and strength. Creatine will help to slow the decline in training standards in both ways 1a and 1b during your fat loss.

Secondly, as in point 2, because creatine is so effective at making the muscles use the available energy you take in through food for muscle repair, you are at much less risk of having calories being stored as fat, and, this makes sure the muscles are being repaired fully, thus retained. Muscles failing to be repaired through nutrition will diminish rapidly.

About the ‘false trap’ I mentioned…

Those not currently supplementing with creatine, or those who have just started and are unaware of how it works, you need to know something crucially important relating to your fat loss:

Creatine promotes water and nutrient retention in the muscles, therefore while it saturates the muscles fully – as it needs to, to work – you will see your weight temporarily go up.

I emphasized weight because this is not a fat gain. Nor does it have anything to do with fat whatsoever. So, if you’ve just begin supplementing with creatine whilst trying to lose fat, or are planning to, don’t be alarmed when you see this. It’s not uncommon for people to gain 5-10lb of additional weight from this effect alone.

You may, therefore, be doing everything right – and actually losing fat – but you don’t see it on the scales because they are going up while your creatine saturation peaks out. For this reason, I advise you to use callipers to measure your body fat as this is the only true way to gauge fat loss or gain; scales can be affected by too many variables, including the sandwich you had for lunch and bladder/bowel contents.

Conclusion:

As you can see, it really is all about the muscles, and because creatine is so adept at increasing the quality of a workout and repairing muscle, supplementing with creatine during fat loss is an excellent way to increase your results and shorten the amount of time it takes to get trim.

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We’ll begin by exploring a list of the safety issues creatine has been ‘linked’ with, no matter how tenuously, and in no particular order of graveness:

• Dehydration…
• Dizziness during workout…
• Constipation…
• Diarrhoea…
• Muscle cramps…
• Permanent hormone alteration…
• Permanent changes in kidney function…
• Instant death…
• Epileptic seizures…

Now, before you go sticking your fingers down your throat to regurgitate the creatine dose you’ve just taken, and begin pouring the remainder of your tub of creatine down the toilet for fear it may make you rob a bank – another possible creatine side effect – I urge you to give me a minute to explain some of the more serious, so-called safety ‘concerns’ using rationale.

Rationale starts here:

As my sarcasm has already crept into the article, I feel my cover is blown and I’ll cut straight to the point and dismiss these concerns as nothing more than unfounded hysteria. Creatine has been used by athletes – millions and millions of athletes – since the early 1990’s, and you can be absolutely certain that if there was any serious health risk – no matter how tenuous the link with creatine – it would have been discovered by now. And, as ever, the law, the Olympic committee, and other sporting committees would place creatine on the banned substance list quicker than you can say “I’ll Be Damned”.

During the almost 2 decades it has been available and used as a sports supplement, you can bet there will be plenty of people who have used it for almost that entire duration, almost non-stop. Yet, are there any with serious health issues which can be absolutely linked to such long term creatine usage? I know of none, and, it would seem nobody else does either.

In reality, creatine is probably the most extensively research supplement ever. We are talking thousands of laboratory studies – and not to mention millions of walking, talking real-life studies – which have turned up absolutely nothing untoward.

Of course, the media and those with vested interests in whipping up scare stories just love to link their targeted prey to any ill. “Hey, Benny cheated on his wife, must’ve been the creatine.” Puh.

The truth is, it’s human nature to look for reasons to place blame, so things make sense to us. Creatine, just as McDonalds – and a million other things – just cop unfair blame or suspicion because people either abuse themselves with over-consumption, or, ‘it was the most obvious thing to blame.’

The fact is, so far as serious health risks and creatine go, there is no substantiated evidence to suggest there are any – yet thousands of positive studies and millions of real-life users to attest to its safety.

Seriously now, there are only a few minor legitimate (potential) snags with creatine, and it certainly doesn’t deserve the label of ‘danger’ stamped on it because of them.

I’ll now tell you of these possible issues, and even explain how you can stop some of them.

Potential Symptom: Gastrointestinal discomfort

In laymen’s terms, creatine may cause some people to experience stomach ache, constipation or diarrhoea. It’s quite possible these symptoms may be more prevalent in those with existing gastrointestinal complains such as IBS.

You really won’t know how you will react until you try it.

Sometimes this potential symptom can be avoided by taking a lessened dose of creatine. For instance, a very popular way to take creatine is by adhering to a brief creatine cycle. This often – not always – involves a loading period during which the user takes a greater-than-recommended dose of creatine for a period of 5-7 days to reach saturation faster. Higher doses of anything always carry with them the potential for adverse effects. If you wish to follow the creatine cycle and find an elevated loading dose brings about gastrointestinal symptoms, you should cut down to regular dose and see how that works for you.

In a rare few, creatine of any workable dose can trigger temporary gastrointestinal issues, and in such instances should not be taken.

Potential Symptom: Dehydration (and related dizziness)

Another complaint some lodge is that upon taking creatine before a workout, they suffer from dehydration and dizziness. Well, therein lies the problem: creatine should not be taken before, or during a workout.

As I’ve explained in my article when to take creatine, when taken, creatine causes water to be drained from the system and pumped into the muscles. Such a change before or during a workout is bound to have ill effects. You need to avoid taking creatine before a workout.

Creatine does not cause dehydration; individuals do this by not drinking enough water. Consume enough water throughout the day and during your workout and you’ll be fine.

Potential Symptom: Muscle cramps

Anyone who partakes in strenuous training can experience cramps, it’s part and parcel of making progress. Muscle cramps are known to occur because of dehydration, but also when a muscle has been worked excessively resulting in DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness).

While creatine undoubtedly helps to get more out of the muscles, sensible training should not results in regular bouts of DOMS. There is no difference between overtraining without creatine, or overtraining with creatine. None whatsoever. Therefore, creatine isn’t to blame here.

As I’ve already explained, creatine is also not to blame for dehydration induced cramp.

Conclusion:

I’m sure you’ve already reached your own conclusion by now on creatine safety. Ultimately, everything we do carries small risk. That is, risk which is small percentage wise, but could have grave consequences for that small percentage of people. It may well be that there are some people out there who will become seriously ill by taking creatine at the correct dosage. I am yet to hear of any such case.

In closing, is creatine safe? Yes – as safe as anything, providing it’s not abused.

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Truth: You will lose some strength (there’s a but here…)

Creatine works by allowing enhanced refuelling and storage of our bodies anaerobic fuel ATP. By virtue of simply having more ATP in ones system, a person can expect to see enhanced anaerobic strength, with absolutely zero gains in muscle size needed.

Just as it took time to become fully ‘charged’ with creatine, it takes time for creatine levels to return to normal. Creatine levels usually take around 30 days to return back to normal upon stopping creatine supplementation. During this time you can expect to lose some strength, purely because your muscles no longer have the enhanced energy supply they once did.

Also, before any real biological changes take shape, a person may experience a loss of strength due to the placebo effect in which the expectation and anticipation of losing strength can cause premature manifestation of such stoppage effects purely on a psychological basis, before the physiological change really occurs.

Now it’s established why you will lose some strength, what about muscle size?

Truth: You will lose some size (there’s a but here…)

It may not be looking promising to you so far, but, bare with me – I think you’ll be surprised. Ok, here’s what you need to remember about muscle size: it’s not all comprised of muscle fibres. Muscle size is also determined by the fluids and energy stored into the muscles.

Because creatine enhances water retention and greater energy storage in the muscles, this creates greater size independently of muscle fibre size. When stopping creatine, as levels begin to normalize, you can expect to experience a decrease in overall muscle volume – but, that does not impact upon muscle fibre size whatsoever.

Any size and strength you gained solely attributable to muscle fibre hypertrophy will be kept.

Conclusion:

Losing some of the benefits of creatine you’ve become accustomed to enjoying may not be that easy to swallow. After all, it’s never nice to see size or strength go down – it doesn’t matter the reason. We train to progress, and as such, any kind of regression (perceived or real) can be hard to take.

What you have to keep in mind is, the lasting creatine benefits of enhanced strength and size through fibre hypertrophy will persist. If you are cycling creatine, you’ll experience this ‘boom and bust’ each time you end your cycle, and will soon learn to accept it for what it is – no big deal.

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Why timing is crucial to making creatine work properly

First it’s important to understand how creatine works. When we perform anabolic exercise, our muscles use an energy supply called ATP. When ATP is burned, it loses a phosphate molecule and becomes ADP. Creatine when stored in the body is creatine phosphate, and, it donates a phosphate molecule to ADP allowing it to become ATP once more so it can be used as energy again. Therefore, the more creatine we have in our muscles – the more efficient and effective this ADP to ATP conversion process is; the longer it lasts, and the better our performance.

The problem is, unless you know when the best time to take creatine is, you’ll have a hard time getting it into the muscles to start with. That’s why you need to take advantage of a special time when your muscles are hyper-susceptible to taking in almost any kind of energy they can get their hypothetical hands on: post workout.

Just as post workout is the most important meal of your day because your muscles are crying out for replenishment, it’s also the most important time to take creatine, for the same reasons. Taking creatine post workout will make your muscles soak it up like a sponge – which is exactly what you want.

If that weren’t enough, studies have shown that creatine absorption can be boosted up to a massive 60% from the same dosage – simply by taking it with the simple sugar dextrose. This happens because insulin is an excellent nutrient transporter and taking in sugar will cause an insulin surge – which the muscles in their post-workout state are all to happy to accept.

Some creatine brands come pre-mixed with dextrose and other ingredients, though studies comparing their effectiveness versus the traditional pure creatine and separate dextrose mixture are thin on the ground.

Many people opt to take creatine with grapefruit juice post-workout and are happy with the results. I still suggest anyone try it with dextrose though, as these things are always worth testing to see if the grass is indeed greener.

Other good times to supplement

When you first wake:

Now you know why creatine works so well when taken post-workout, what about the other ‘most important meal of the day’ – breakfast?

Just as your muscles are starved of nutrition and are extra open to feeding post-workout, the same happens after you’ve been sleeping (and starving) yourself for 7 hours. Not only will your muscles be more open to food, but, creatine, too.

But, knowing when to take creatine is only half of the story, you also need to know when not to take it…

Pre-workout:

Surprisingly, taking creatine pre-workout is a bad idea. From the outset, logic seems to say taking it before a workout would be good for energy levels, but, I’ll explain why just as with a lot of things relating to the body, things aren’t always as they seem.

Here are several reasons why taking creatine before a workout is a bad idea:

1. Firstly, the benefits to taking creatine before a workout are zilch. Creatine levels should already be full, and, taking more will be redundant.
2. Secondly, let’s assume in the unlikely event you are lacking in creatine pre-workout. When you take it, not only does it need to be converted into Phosphocreatine which takes time, but, you don’t have the lay of the land with regards to changes in body fluids. What I mean is, as creatine causes bodily fluids to be forced into muscles, it depraves vital organs such as your heart, brain and kidneys of fluids – which is certainly dangerous during exercise. And – chances are, you won’t have a clue you are dehydrated nor to what extent you are dehydrated until you are feeling the effects of dehydration, by which times its too late. If you are unsure about your creatine levels pre-workout, I advise you to forget taking a dose before, work out, and then possibly take a larger dose post workout.
3. Studies have conclusively shown that creatine is best taken with simple sugar dextrose. Trainees or trainers of any experience will seldom recommend taking in any amount of simple sugar before a workout, as they are notorious for causing spontaneous blood sugar crashes, which will not only ruin your workout, but, possibly be dangerous.

Conclusion:

As this article illustrates, when it comes to our bodies, common sense is sometimes the mother of all f… well, you get my point! I hope that I’ve given you what you came here for and that you now have a better understanding of when to take creatine and when not to, and why. I now see no reason why timing should let you down.

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Let’s kick it off…

If creatine works so well, why would I take a break from it?

From the outset, it would seem counterproductive to take breaks from creatine when creatine benefits can be so pronounced to the user. But, what we need to remember is that the creatine we supplement with makes up only a fraction of the creatine which our bodies produce naturally, and manufacture from food sources.

Our bodies are notoriously against change; they resist muscle gains, they resist fat loss and they resist chemical changes. Many creatine users have noted that after taking creatine without break for a period of time, the effects become diminished.

Although no scientific proof can back this up, the prevalent theory for this is that the body begins to manufacture less creatine itself, in an effort to normalize creatine levels once more. (Remember: the body fights change, it constantly seeks ‘normal’.)

Another possible theory is the body somehow becomes accustomed to the creatine and it’s positive effects wane somewhat, perhaps similar to the way that someone becomes accustomed to alcohol effects when drinking regularly, and the effects are more pronounced when drinking alcohol after a reasonable period of abstinence.

What is true is, exceeding the recommended creatine dose to offset the diminishing effects is not a wise option, and will not only hit your wallet, but raises susceptibility to possible side effects – particularly gastrointestinal issues, and other possible more serious issues not yet known.

My advice then, is to cycle creatine. Which brings us to…

How to cycle creatine:

It is recommended that a creatine user cycle for 4 – 8 weeks, maximum, followed by a 4 – 8 week non-supplementation period.

For creatine supplementation to be effective, it takes a little time for creative levels to build up. It doesn’t just happen full-force from the first time you take it, which brings me to my next point.

Because the period of supplementation is short during a creatine cycle, a method of ramping up creatine levels in quick time was devised called creatine loading. In a nutshell, creatine loading is a short period (usually a week) of above-recommended-dosing of around 15-20g a day, followed by the remainder of the cycle being at maintenance (regular dose, typically 3-5g a day) for the remainder of the cycle.

Right. Now you hopefully understand the concept, here’s how to load and maintain – completing a ‘creatine cycle’:

1. For 5-7 days, take 20g of creatine split up into 4 x 5g doses.
2. Once the initial 7 days is over, maintain elevated creatine levels for the remainder of your cycle with a singular daily 3-5g creatine dose.
3. If after loading you feel the effects waning during maintenance doses of 3g, I suggest upping it to 5g. (It would be superfluous, and possibly unwise to go much above 5g a day during maintenance after what should have been a more-than-sufficient loading phase.)

It is worth noting that some people who load – due to excess creatine – may experience gastrointestinal side effects, which is not something you should suffer through. If you find this happening, then skip on the loading, and just take your daily recommended dose.

But if I cycle creatine and stop, will I lose all of my gains?

A valid concern, which needs addressing. In a nutshell, no, is the answer. Not entirely, at the very least. Think of a creatine cycle as temporary way to make permanent gains. Guys who do strength training and bodybuilding cycle steroids – yet they still make permanent gains. Yes, they may regress slightly when coming off them, but, quite clearly it’s case of 10 steps forward, and only 2, 3 or 4 back. If that weren’t the case, then these guys wouldn’t make progress at all. They wouldn’t keep getting bigger and stronger year after year.

Exactly the same with creatine. It may be that you regress slightly during the 30 days it takes your elevated creatine levels to return to natural levels once more, but, you certainly won’t lose all of your gains.

Conclusion:

All in all, creatine and its effectiveness – and its possible side effects – are a very personal thing. Really, there is absolutely no piece of advice which can tell you how you’ll respond, so I highly recommend you play it by ear and do not be ignorant to what your body is telling you. If creatine cycling makes sense to you, then give it a go. If not, then just try a prolonged period at recommended dose. If one fails, try the other. If both fail, maybe creatine just isn’t for you – it’s not for everyone.

Some people seem to be able to use rather high doses of creatine without cycling, without side effects, and swear by it’s positive impact upon their training. Others may take the same dose during a cycle, and get side effects but no positive effects, leaving them asking themselves, is it worth it?

Will it be worth it to you? Only trying it will reveal all.

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Let’s cut right to the meat of the issue and establish what kind of activities creatine will work for…

Creatine will only work for anaerobic activities. As someone participating in some kind of training or sport already, I’m sure you are already aware of what anaerobic means, but, for the benefit of those who don’t, ‘anaerobic activity’ basically means explosive, unsustainable effort – such as sprinting, weight lifting, throwing, jumping – I’m sure you get the picture. Any activity which requires a sudden – and short – burst of energy.

ATP is the fuel source of the muscles during anaerobic activity, and, creatine sustains the availability of ATP by donating phosphate to ADP (the by product of used ATP) to make it ATP – available energy – once more.

Now an explanation of the various creatine effects…

• Increased explosive power: Because your muscles now have an increased energy supply, you are going to be capable of generating that much more force during a limited time.
• Increased capacity for volume: Previously, under the same anaerobic conditions, you may have been able to perform only a certain amount of sets or reps with a given weight. You should now be able to perform more reps – still anaerobic – and/or recover quicker in between sets. Basically, it allows you to increase your anaerobic workload.
• Increased muscle recovery: We all know how important recovery is. Well, enhancing the creatine supply in the body makes for more rapid recuperation abilities. This allows more rapid muscle growth, and ensures you are fully rested and recovered in between workouts.
• Increased muscle volume: Separate from the enhanced growth effects creatine has is the volumizing ‘pump’ effect creatine gives its users when they are fully saturated. Some who wish to look bigger in a hurry may count this creatine effect as a desirable one..

What happens if creatine’s effects begin to wear off?

Quite a common phenomenon is the gradual decline in the boost creatine may give you after a certain amount of time. Some people are able to take the same recommended creatine dosage for a long time and swear it still works for them, while others report a gradual decline in its effects.

Although studies as to why this happens are scant, we tend to speculate that the body (which always tries to ‘normalize’ what it deems abnormal chemical processes) begins producing less of its own creatine in order to negate the effects of the supplementation.

Of course, you are then fighting a losing battle. Not only would upping the dosage be taking you into unknown territory, but, it’s going to hit your pockets hard with all the extra creatine you’ll be using. Why do it? You don’t need to.

If you notice a decline in creatine effectiveness, what I recommend you do is follow the creatine cycle. This entails a period of supplementation (done in a specific way) followed by a period of non-supplementation.

It’s believed this cycling gives optimum bang for your buck during the on cycle, and gives enough of a cooling off time to allow the body to normalize its own creatine production once more – so you can go back on creatine again after the cooling off period, and experience its effects in all their glory again.

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Let’s start from the beginning…

What creatine is…

Creatine is an amino acid created by our bodies from the following other amino acids:

1. Argenine
2. Methionine
3. Glycine

Our bodies make creatine, but we can enhance the amount of creatine present in our system by eating creatine-containing foods such as beef or fish, or in our case, creatine supplements. Now for the mechanics of it…

How creatine works in your body…

In short, creatine (stored in the body as Phosphocreatine/creatine phosphate) works to maintain levels of ATP. ATP is an essential energy source for every aspect of the body, not just for muscles. When we train or perform anaerobic exercise, ATP is the fuel which we burn. It burns fast and doesn’t last long.

Once ATP is used for energy, it loses a phosphate molecule and becomes ADP. That’s where creatine comes in. Creatine donates a phosphate molecule to ADP making it ATP again, allowing it to be used as energy once more. That’s how creatine works. We’re now coming to the final and all important part which explains what’s in it for you.

What benefits you can get from correct creatine usage…

There are 3 main ways creatine will benefit you. They are:

1. More explosive power: Because ATP is crucial to anaerobic exercise, more ATP means more available for instantaneous energy release. This means you can sprint faster, jump higher, lift heavier, etc.

1. More training volume: Don’t misinterpret this – this simply means greater volume under anaerobic conditions. Studies show creatine benefits do not transfer over to aerobic activity.

1. Recover quicker: Being able to recover quicker during exercise means you can have more intense sessions and/or increase volume. Plus, being able to recover quicker means more complete recovery (and muscle growth) between training – and quite possibly, opens the door up for additional training.

Conclusion:

I’ve seen many articles on the internet which are way off when it comes to explaining how creatine works and, even what creatine is. I hope this article has cleared up some of those misconceptions and has been useful to you.

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