The Benefits of Creatine: Why You Should Consider This Supplement

Supplement called creatine has been around for years and is one of the supplement that has been studied thoroughly. Question I usually get is what is creatine?, how to use it? is it same as creatinine?, and is it safe?. Lets get started.

What is Creatine?

Creatine is made of 3 amino acids arginine, glycine, and methionine. It is primarily made in the liver and in the kidney and pancreas. Creatine is a high energy phosphate donor and it exist in muscle as phosphocreatine. When you take creatine supplement, it'll come into the muscle and get a phosphate attached to it to create phosphocreatine.

Where does the phosphate comes from? Our body produce energy source called ATP or adenosine tri-phosphate. Food that we consume will go through metabolic pathways and eventually turns into ATP. Think of it as a currency for our body to utilize food into energy. To get muscular contraction, ATP will break off one of the three phosphate and turns into ADP or adenosine di-phosphate and one free phosphate. When the creatine is present in muscles, it bind with free phosphate which is high energy source to the body to regenerate ATP that help improve your performance during physical activity.

Creatine is also a osmolite which means, it pulls water into muscle tissues. You may think it's just a water, but you need to realize muscle is 70% water, which means we need water for muscular growth in both strength and size. With creatine intake you may see muscle size or definition improved in 3-4 weeks, which also means that you may experience a weight gain.

Multiple studies confirmed that effect of creatine is improving strength and power output during resistance training, improve in lean muscle mass, neuroprotective, cardioprotective and enhances bone health.

How to Use Creatine

Our body does create creatine, however, for those who perform resistance training on regular basis may need extra 5g of creatine through supplement. Type of creatine you should look for is creatine monohydrate, which is a form that has been studied. This is a supplement that you don't need to worry about brand or price, however, make sure there aren't to many other ingredients for it may upset your stomach.

Creatine, in initial phase, needs loading phase where you should take 5g of creatine mixed with water, protein shake or smoothies for 2 weeks then you only need to take 5g on resistance training day. Creatine should ideally be taken after the training sessions, however, the benefits seems to be confirmed even outside of that time frame. Some believe taking more than 5g of creatine per day have better effect, however, 5g works just fine.

If you are on vacation, rest day or doing technical (not heavy), you do need to take creatine.

Creatine and Creatinine

Creatine is often get confused with creatinine. It's close name but are completely different particle. Creatinine is byproduct of normal kidney function and you will see this on your blood panel. Creatinine level can be elevated because of dehydration, certain medications, kidney disease, diabetes and so on. Creatine supplement has nothing to do with creatinine level although their name are close.

Creatine Safety

Creatine is created in our body but it is helpful to supplement with it when you are regular with your resistance training. There is no studies found that claim creatine has ill effect on our health. Only issues that I have come across is GI distress and usually because of manufacturers added other chemicals so they can market it better. So if you have a sensitive gut make sure to check the source.

Summary

There are so many studies have confirmed that creatine has a noticeable benefit especially for those who are regular with resistance training or physical activities. Therefore, creatine supplement in a form of creatine monohydrate should be used by active individual.

Creatine monohydrate should be consumed 5g per day for 2 weeks then can be taken 5g per day after training session or physical activities. Selecting creatine supplement by brand or price is not very important. Important portion is the supplement does have creatine monohydrate and not too many additives which may cause GI distress.

If you are physically active and wanting to improve your outcome, creatine can be good addition to your supplement list.

Kota Shimada