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heres a longer explanation and all you really need to know. yes it is long, but you need to know what your doing before you take it.
The creatine theory
The cells in your body are fuelled by a compound called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Every blink of your eye, every biceps curl, every step you take, every move you make, every bond you break… ATP’s the fuel.
You generate ATP in different ways, depending on the intensity of your chosen exercise. As long as you can take in enough oxygen to fuel the process, your body turns carbohydrates and fats into ATP. But for all-out efforts lasting a mere three to five seconds – think weight-lifting, sprinting bursts or rugby tackles – you can’t inhale enough oxygen to generate the amount of ATP you need. Which is where creatine comes into play. Phospho-creatine (PCr), a natural component of skeletal muscle in your body, makes it possible to “recycle” ATP you’ve used and make it usable fuel again, enabling you and your muscles to make another all-out effort. The body synthesizes about half of your daily creatine requirement. The rest comes from your diet. But, bodies not being 100% efficient, you lose about 2g of creatine a day. Which means that generating enough ATP for regular, intensive workouts is tough. For decades, sports scientists believed that flooding muscles with extra creatine would result in more PCr, which would enable better and quicker ATP regeneration, and give you the ability to perform more intensive sessions. And that increase in intensity and frequency would, they reasoned, lead to greater strength and muscle size. The emergence of cheap, synthetic creatine in the early ’90s meant the theory could be tested. Willing guinea-pigs have included athletes such as Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell, who took supplements at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Does it increase strength?
This is the key question for most of us, but to understand the answer we need to understand what we mean by strength and where it comes from. Our muscles are made up of different fibres – type I (slow) and type II (fast). Type I fibres are fuelled by a compound called ATP (see below for the full scientific explanation), which is fired by oxygen, and give us endurance. It’s the type II fibres that unleash the explosive force needed to lift bar-bells and 32in TVs. Or what we call strength. And owing to the intensity of the effort, these fibres don’t use the oxygen-generated ATP route. In scientific speak, this makes them “anaerobic”.
As every gym-goer knows, the more you work these type II fibres, the stronger and bigger they become. As Dr Franco-Obregón says, “Anaerobic exercise like weight-lifting and sprinting is the optimal stimulus for muscle growth.” And creatine is the fuel your muscles need for this anaerobic exercise. “Creatine gives you higher anaerobic energy stores, and thus sets the stage for subsequent muscle growth and strength gain,” says Franco-Obregón. In other words, it gives you the fuel to do the work that builds your strength. But you have to do the work.
“When creatine is supplemented at the appropriate levels, muscle creatine stores become elevated, boosting the ability of muscles to perform high-intensity work and delaying the onset of fatigue,” says Andrew Hamilton. “Those who take advantage of this ability to train more intensely can develop more strength. However, simply taking creatine without the appropriate strength training will not build strength.”
In a nutshell: Yes. “Creatine allows you to do more intense training, that’s the key,” says Professor Greenhaff. “It allows more work to be performed, and this leads to growth.”
Does it work for muscle growth?
You may have heard bodybuilders say that much of the muscle-size gains you undoubtedly get after taking creatine come from temporary water retention, rather than any actual thickening of muscle fibres. “Creatine attracts water when it accumulates within a cell,” agrees Franco-Obregón. “The water flows into the cell in an attempt to dilute the creatine, causing the cell to swell.” And this is likely to be most noticeable when you start taking creatine, in the loading phase when your powder intake is highest. “Studies report decreases in urine production during the loading phase, when creatine absorption is greatest, which might reflect greater amounts of fluid being retained by your muscles,” says Franco-Obregón.
There’s more to it than just water in and, inevitably, water out, though. “With more creatine and water in the muscle, the muscle cell is ‘volumised’, which helps to trigger protein synthesis, minimise protein breakdown and increase glycogen synthesis,” says James Collier. Or, translated from science parlance, it creates the right environment for real muscle growth. “If a muscle is then trained properly, this could lead to enhanced growth,” confirms Collier. “Most users experience notable weight increases when they start a course of creatine – up to six or seven pounds [about 3kg], especially the first time they use it.” But how much is “real” growth and how much is temporary water-filling? “Most of this weight gain is from the cell volumising effect, which isn’t permanent,” says Collier. “Some weight gain is from an increase in muscle tissue, though. Studies have shown that creatine- supplemented subjects gain significantly more lean body mass than non-creatine-supplemented individuals.”
In a nutshell: Much of the apparent muscle gain will disappear when the supplementation stops.
Does it improve endurance?
Creatine fuels explosive efforts in the gym, on the track, the court, or wherever you need them. But does it help if you’re partaking of longer, less intense activities? Initially, the experts thought not. “During less intense exercise, such as long-distance running or cycling, virtually all of the fuel needed for muscle contraction comes from aerobic energy production – from combining muscle fuels directly with oxygen,” explains Andrew Hamilton. So, theoretically, there’s no need for creatine. In reality, though, “endurance” activities are a little more complicated, and so is the creatine picture. “Almost all serious endurance athletes use interval training to increase their basic speed and help provide the necessary kick at the end of a tight race,” says Hamilton.
If you’re a not-so-serious athlete but want that same kick, creatine could lend a hand. “Research has demonstrated that for endurance athletes such as kayakers and runners the quality of interval training can be increased significantly after supplementation,” says Hamilton. “And higher-quality interval sessions in training can produce higher speeds in competition.”
At the end of a tough race or match, it could mean the difference between leaving an opponent for dead or joining the zombies yourself.
And it’s not just your finishing kick that can be improved via supplementation, says Hamilton. “Some endurance athletes expend so much energy in training that some muscle mass loss is virtually unavoidable,” says Hamilton. “But new research suggests that, in men at least, creatine supplementation can counter this.”
A third plus on the stamina front is currently being examined by Professor Greenhaff. Supplementation seems to enhance the muscles’ ability to store carbohydrate – the key endurance muscle fuel. The effect is rather like the carb-loading practised by marathon runners in the ’70s, only better. “If our research continues to show that creatine enables more carbohydrate to be stored in muscles then that could be of great benefit to endurance athletes,” says Greenhaff. “Double the amount of carbohydrate has been measured in muscle after supplementing with creatine and carbohydrate as opposed to carbs taken on their own.”
In a nutshell: Yes, creatine can help with endurance, but don’t do the “loading phase” (see How To Take It). And keep the dosage low. Excess weight, muscle or not, is no friend in a marathon.
Does it speed up recovery between sets and sessions?
The theory goes like this: the harder the workout the greater the damage to your muscles; and the more damage the more time you’ll need to recover. And as creatine’s whole MO involves enabling you to do harder workouts, you’d expect that taking the powder would lengthen your recovery times. “The combination of heightened-intensity training and increased strength increases the amount of micro tears in your muscle fibres, which is the stiffness you feel after a workout,” says Dr Robert Child. “When these tears repair themselves, they grow back thicker and stronger, which is essentially the reason your muscles grow bigger.”
So creatine means more muscle tears, which means more growth, but should also mean longer recovery. However, Professor Greenhaff’s studies suggest that recovery between sessions isn’t slowed by creatine. “We’ve done sessions of three-times-weekly resistance work and there were no adverse effects,” says Greenhaff.
“As for actually speeding up recovery between sessions,” says Andrew Hamilton, “this is certainly possible theoretically, because creatine appears to promote the uptake of water and glycogen into muscle cells.” These are necessary building blocks for muscle recovery, but more research is needed. “The best way to ensure rapid recovery between sessions is still a good carb-rich diet and plenty of fluid,” concludes Greenhaff.
In a nutshell: Creatine is unlikely to hasten recovery between sessions. Sufficient rest between workouts is vital: it’s when growth occurs.
Is it safe?
In the late ’90s, there were shock-horror headlines after the deaths of three US college wrestlers who, it was said, had been using creatine. It seemed dehydration, elevated body temperature and excessive weight loss had contributed to their deaths. Creatine’s contribution was hotly debated in the press, though it was later revealed that two of the wrestlers might not have supplemented at all. Still, safety is obviously still a massive concern.
…in the short term?
The main potential short-term risks seem to be cramp and dehydration. Since creatine draws water into the muscles, it’s imperative that if you’re using it you also increase your water intake. “It’s vital that anyone taking creatine and performing strenuous exercise drinks plenty of water,” says Lee Oakley. “Heavy training and sweating can also lead to the loss of electrolytes, which are important for muscles to function properly. They need to be replaced to avoid muscle cramping.”
Dr Franco-Obregón’s research indicates that, if you’re supplementing, constant hydration is vital. “You need to keep well hydrated while supplementing,” he says. Drink at least 30ml of water daily, per kilogram of bodyweight, while taking creatine – roughly equivalent to 10-15 glasses of water per day for an average-sized man. Creatine may also exacerbate other conditions, warns James Collier. “I am currently researching links between creatine supplementation and colitis and Crohn’s disease, two disorders which affect the bowel,” says Collier. “The research is not completed yet, so it can’t be confirmed, but observations have been made that there may be a link to creatine worsening these conditions, or causing relapse in predisposed individuals.”
…in the long term?
This is where you really are taking a leap into the unknown. Since creatine supplementation has only been commonplace for the last decade, long-term study of potential downsides is decidedly thin on the ground. The scientific community just doesn’t know yet, so there’s no escaping the fact that when you take the powder you’re taking a risk. “The long-term effects of creatine supplementation are not really known,” says Andrew Hamilton. “So you shouldn’t feel that you have carte blanche to swallow large quantities indiscriminately.” Essentially it comes down to a personal choice: you have to ask yourself whether it’s a risk you’re prepared to take.
In a nutshell: Pay attention to hydration, don’t exceed the dosage, be aware that it may aggravate certain conditions and, most importantly, understand that there’s no guarantee of creatine’s long-term safety or side-effects, so there’s a risk involved
The different types of creatine
Hardly a month goes by without some “latest, greatest” creatine variant entering the marketplace. But
the vast majority of rigorous research has been carried out on creatine monohydrate, so beware claims made by other compounds.
Creatine serum is a liquid form of creatine phosphate – is the most recent “miracle product”, but is dismissed as “completely ineffective” by Professor Ron Maughan, secretary of the Sports Nutrition Group. “It’s a complete scam,
and the companies involved got away with their claims because the legislation wasn’t in place to prevent them,” echoes Professor Paul Greenhaff. “With so many different types of creatine and formulas, it’s no wonder consumers get confused,” says Collier. “Creatine phosphate, creatine pyruvate and creatine citrate aren’t as effective as creatine monohydrate.Effervescent and sublingual creatine both claim to be more readily absorbed, but are really a waste of money as creatine isn’t stable in liquid form. And capsules are reported to be less effective than the powder.”
The golden rule: “Make sure you use creatine monohydrate powder,” says Collier. “Micronised creatine monohydrate formulas are great as they dissolve well.”
How to take it
If you’ve weighed up the powder’s pros and cons – the proven benefits, the risks and the cost – and you’re sold on supplementing, here’s how to get the most from it:
To load or not to load
Most creatine products suggest you take a “loading dose” over the first five days – 5g four times
a day – so your muscles become saturated with the stuff. But recent research backs the cynics’ view that this is simply
a ploy to get us to use more. “A loading phase is not required to benefit from creatine,” says Dr Franco-Obregón. “One study observed a significant rise in muscle creatine in response to only 3g a day.”So is it simply cynical marketing? “One advantage of a loading phase is that the benefits of supplementation will appear sooner,” says Franco-Obregón. “As might be expected, muscle creatine content rose more slowly using the smaller dose, but a loading phase is not actually obligatory or necessary, and similar gains in muscle creatine content can be obtained with smaller doses taken for three to four weeks.” He also stresses that skipping the loading phase will reduce renal stress and the risk of possible gastrointestinal complications. So, unless you’re in an unnatural hurry, don’t bother “loading”.
When to take it
“Without a doubt,” says Franco-Obregón, “the best time to take a creatine supplement is immediately after exercise.” It’s a window of opportunity when your muscles are most receptive to taking up the substance. “Take full advantage of this by taking creatine with a source of simple sugars, such as fruit juice, and whey protein immediately after exercise,” says Franco-Obregón. “These three nutrients, in conjunction with the anabolic hormones that are released through exercise, will combine to build new muscle and recharge depleted energy reserves.”
How much to take
If you go for a loading phase, then, after the initial five days, 2g daily is enough to keep your muscles saturated for up to 28 days, according to Andrew Hamilton. There’s little evidence to show that supplementing for any longer than this is effective. If you haven’t loaded, 3g a day does the trick.
What to take it with
Initially, make sure you have your creatine with some carbs to ensure easier absorption. “There’s no doubt creatine should be taken with carbohydrate,” says Professor Greenhaff. “You need about 80g of carbs per 3-5g of creatine. But only for the first few days. After that, just take the creatine on its own.” James Collier advises necking your powder in a hot, sugared drink (though not boiling as creatine is destroyed at very high temperatures) so it dissolves more easily, along with some fruit or fruit juice. Alternatively, mix it with a hot full-sugar cordial.
How long to take it for
“Creatine hasn’t been around long enough to know whether continual supplementation for months or years is safe,” says Hamilton, summarising expert opinion. “For these reasons, cycling creatine [alternating periods of use and non-use] is a good idea. There are no hard-and-fast rules, but many athletes follow five-week cycles – one week loading, followed by four weeks’ maintenance, then five weeks ‘off’.”
