Creatine
Why I Started Taking It and What You Should Know
Welcome Players! There are only a few proven ergogenic aids when it comes to supplements and sport performance.
They are known to be caffeine, creatine, and sodium bicarbonate.
Let’s clarify some things:
“Ergogenic Aid” = a mechanical, nutritional, pharmacological, physiological and/or psychological tool used to improve performance
“Proven” = undeniable scientific evidence that the aid in question improves sport performance in most populations with little-to-no side effects
There are certainly many more legal substances that have ergogenic properties, but none of which have the conclusive validity in research across all populations at improving performance like our 3 main aids do
Today I’m going to be talking about creatine, what it is, how it’s useful for improving performance, and why I just recently started taking it.
Let’s rock.
Before we talk about creatine supplementation, it’s important to understand that creatine is a naturally occurring compound.
The average American diet gets about 1g of creatine through the consumption of meat and fish, and the body synthesizes the rest through other amino acids.
Creatine plays an important role in fueling our exercise because it is one of the main components for our anaerobic energy system.
When performing short, high-intensity exercises our body turns to the phospho-creatine energy system; Creatine Phosphate (which is synthesized by the body naturally and stored in skeletal muscle) donates its phosphate to ADP in order to quickly resynthesize ATP for use by the muscles.
This energy system is the main system used for exercise lasting approximately 10 seconds or less, but since there is limited storage of ATP and creatine phosphate in the muscles it is prone to rapid fatigue.
While there is a complex multi-factorial relationship as to why our muscles and nervous system fatigue, one piece of that is available creatine stores in the muscle.
When you complete a short burst of intense movement depleting that muscle of creatine-phosphate (which provides ATP), your ability to produce powerful movement is reduced.
With that said, the role of creatine supplementation is rather simple:
By supplementing with exogenous creatine you are increasing the available stores of creatine in the creatine-phosphate system, which would increase the speed at which ATP is resynthesized in the muscle and would also reduce the rate at which fatigue occurs.
This translates to you being able to work harder for longer in the gym.
Better training = better performance.
It’s that simple.
While creatine could certainly help improve game performance, the real benefit to its supplementation is being able to improve the volume and intensity at which you train leading to greater improvements.
More creatine = more ATP = more energy = more training intensity + volume
Cool? Cool.
I should also mention that more recent research has looked at creatine’s positive influence on cognition related to memory and recovery from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), although this research is not as conclusive and many knowledge gaps remain.
So why did I start taking creatine?
Because I want to be able to maximize my weightlifting for strength and muscle gain! With this goal, creatine is a no-brainer.
Let me walk you through my mental model on the use of creatine as it contrasts pretty greatly to much of what I see from other professionals.
It’s generally accepted now that creatine can be supplemented at 5g/day indefinitely with no contraindications and no side effects. Creatine is safe for your liver regardless of condition or medical history.
I still recommend using creatine in phases, somewhere in the 6-12 week mark. I’ll use my own training as an example to tell you why.
For most of last year while my performance goal was related to golf I was lifting 2x/week. Each were full-body workouts and the intensity was never above an 8/10 as I also had to balance cycling and of course golf practice. In this sense my weightlifting was auxiliary to the other activities I was doing.
While I could have been taking creatine then and seen some increase in performance, I wouldn’t have been maximizing its effectiveness. It’s like using 70% of somethings max potential. Useful, but not efficient.
This year my goals have changed, and I’ve been lifting 3x/week. I’m prioritizing muscle growth and strength and as such my volume and intensity has progressed greatly from the 2x/week lifts I was doing just a few months ago.
With this progression I’ve been able to get stronger and start to put on muscle mass in a way I’m happy with.
The gains are always easiest in the beginning though, and the more you lift the harder it is to get noticeable improvements.
Going from 0-1 is a lot easier than going from 9-10, if you know what I mean.
This is where creatine comes in.
Instead of accepting the slow, steady progression that comes from seasoned weightlifting, by strategically timing my use of an ergogenic aid like creatine I can use the performance-enhancing effects to maintain momentum through training plateaus and get really impressive performance improvements without any changes to my training structure.
A pointed example of this is in compound movements. At a certain body weight it becomes incredibly difficult to lift more without gaining mass. I can only bench or deadlift so much while weigh 165lbs, and knowing how difficult it is for me to gain weight I inevitably reach a weight plateau around a certain multiple of body weight.
Creatine supplementation allows for increased energy to continue to progress volume and intensity WITHOUT having to adjust other variables such as total body weight or muscle mass.
It’s a proven ergogenic aid that will allow me to lift more for longer and work through my current program until I have the ability to adjust my caloric intake to match.
Think of it as a very well-timed “power-up”.
This is the exact reason why I still recommend taking it in phases instead of continuous supplementation.
If you use your power-up too early you have no added benefit of momentum. Use it too late and you’ve missed peak efficiency.
But use it at just the right time and you will progress through sticking points with ruthless effectiveness.
It’s also important to note that the best time to use creatine is when your program consists of heavy weight, volume, or intensity as those are the attributes where the creatine-phosphate system can contribute to most.
If your program is in a maintenance phase or you are focusing on improving muscular endurance then the performance benefits of creatine are going to be negligible because it has limited contribution there.
But when you are lifting for max strength and/or power you are going to see and feel a huge difference in energy supply once you’ve raised your circulating creatine levels with daily supplementation.
So my plan is to be on creatine for the next 8-12 weeks while maximizing my strength program and once I naturally cycle out of the strength phase will discontinue supplementation in lieu of other areas of focus.
Sticking with the power-up analogy, if you are always using a power-up it no longer becomes an added bonus, it becomes your new status quo. You might be better than you would be without it, but you won’t be able to capture the synergistic momentum of using it at the right time, for the right purpose.
To clarify, I firmly believe that effective creatine supplementation should occur for a period of 6-12 weeks while participating in a program that emphasizes strength and/or power gains.
If done correctly creatine will contribute greatly to performance during training and its compound effects will be noticeably felt. Once the training program phases out of strength and power, creatine should be discontinued so that when the program does eventually cycle back not those phases it can be implemented again with the same effectiveness.
Some final notes on creatine usage:
I take 5g/day in the morning because it’s both most consistent and easiest on my routine.
Creatine supplementation needs to be daily, regardless of whether or not you are working out
Loading phase is optional; I do not use a loading phase anymore
I take creatine monohydrate as it is accepted as being best absorbed by the body
Some people can experience GI distress when starting creatine. If this is you there are two recommendations, 1) switch to micronized creatine monohydrate and see if that helps 2) start with 1g/day and slowly increase dosage as tolerated up to 5g/day over the course of 2-3 weeks
Whether the literature has accepted that creatine increases water retention in the muscle or not is irrelevant (unless you’re a bodybuilding/physique competitor) because you should always be prioritizing hydration anyway
I have no doubt that as scientific discovery continues there will be more benefits found in all supplements, but my core principles remain the same.
We should prioritize getting all of our vitamins and minerals from primary food sources and creatine is no different. Consumption of 5g/day of creatine can be done through meat and fish, although that is not something I want to prioritize and as such opt for a nutritional supplementation.
I believe any supplement that is taken should be just that, supplementary, and as such am always prioritizing sustainable usage. This is another point as to why I believe in using it in a cyclic fashion that corresponds with the appropriate phase of your training program.
I advise to prevent reliance upon any compound or supplement so as to encourage resilience. If you have to rely on creatine for your performance, you probably have many other gaps in your training structure.
All in all, creatine is a proven ergogenic aid that when used appropriately offers the potential for huge improvements in muscle mass, strength, and power development.
Use it wisely my friends.
Happy to answer any questions relating to creatine supplementation in the comments below.
- Trainer 01