Updated: 1/3/24
Have you ever left the gym feeling like you had more to give but your muscles just couldn’t take anymore? We’ve all been there. Those workouts where you push yourself to the limit but find you’re lacking just a little more endurance or power to finish strong. What if I told you there was a 100% natural supplement that could drastically improve your strength and endurance allowing you to get the most out of every hard-earned rep? If putting in max effort during your workouts and seeing quicker gains is your goal, then creatine monohydrate may be the simple solution you’ve been missing.
As one of the most researched and proven supplements on the market, creatine can help boost your work capacity giving you that extra push to power through even your toughest training sessions. In this guide, we’ll take a deeper look at how creatine works, the benefits you can expect to see, and how to safely and effectively incorporate it into your routine to up your fitness game.
What is Creatine?
Creatine is a naturally occurring molecule found in muscles and other tissues of the body. It is made up of three amino acids, namely glycine, arginine, and methionine. Creatine is produced in the liver, kidney, and pancreas and then transported to muscles, where it is stored as phosphocreatine (PCr). Phosphocreatine serves as an energy source for producing ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is the primary fuel for muscle contraction during high-intensity exercise.
The primary function of creatine is to increase the availability of ATP in muscles, which enhances energy metabolism during high-intensity exercise. When you perform an intense exercise such as lifting weights, your body uses up its available ATP stores within seconds. However, the stored phosphocreatine in muscles can rapidly replenish the ATP stores during short periods of rest. This allows you to perform more repetitions and sets with greater intensity and recover faster between workouts. Therefore, creatine supplementation can increase the work capacity and volume of training, leading to greater gains in strength and muscle mass.
Creatine was discovered in 1832 by the French scientist Michel Eugène Chevreul, who isolated it from meat. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that creatine gained popularity as a performance-enhancing supplement. The first creatine supplement was introduced in the United States in 1993, and since then, it has become one of the most widely used sports supplements worldwide. Today, creatine is available in various forms, including powders, capsules, and ready-to-drink beverages. It is also used by athletes in different sports, such as football, basketball, soccer, and track and field.
Where Does Creatine Come From?
Creatine is a natural substance that is found in our bodies. It is produced in the liver, pancreas, and kidneys, and it is then transported to the muscle tissues where it is used as a source of energy. The process of creatine synthesis in the body depends on the availability of amino acids, specifically arginine, glycine, and methionine.
Our bodies are not the only source of creatine. It is also found in some foods, mainly animal products such as beef, pork, and fish. In fact, creatine is highest in concentration in red meat, making it the biggest natural dietary source. However, the amount of creatine found in foods is relatively small compared to the amount that can be found in supplements.
What is Phosphocreatine?
Phosphocreatine, or creatine phosphate, is a molecule found in your muscles that helps to produce ATP during intense muscular activity. ATP, or adenosine triphosphate, is the energy source that your muscles use during exercise. By increasing the amount of phosphocreatine in your muscles, you can increase the amount of ATP available to fuel your workouts.
What is Creatine Kinase?
Creatine kinase is an enzyme that is found in muscle cells. It plays a crucial role in the production of ATP, the primary source of energy used by our muscles during exercise. Most commonly, creatine kinase is used as a supplement to enhance athletic performance and aid in muscle gain.
When you supplement with creatine kinase, your body is flooded with extra energy that helps you push through even the most challenging workouts. It works by increasing ATP production, allowing you to maintain higher-intensity exercises for more extended periods. Additionally, creatine kinase can help you gain muscle mass by facilitating protein synthesis, a process in which your body builds and repairs muscle tissue.
What Foods Have Creatine?
While many people opt for supplements to boost their creatine intake, the truth is that you can get plenty of this nutrient from your diet too. Here are some of the best food sources of creatine:
- Beef: Particularly red meat like steak and ground beef, which contain around 5 grams of creatine per pound.
- Pork: Pork loin and tenderloin are also good sources of creatine. They contain around 1 gram of creatine per pound.
- Fish: Salmon, tuna, and other types of fish are rich in creatine, with cooked salmon providing about 4.5 grams of creatine per pound.
- Eggs: Not typically thought of as a muscle-building food, eggs are actually a great source of creatine. They contain around 0.1 grams of creatine per egg.
What Does Creatine Do?
May Increase Muscle Mass
One of the most significant advantages of supplementing with creatine is its ability to increase muscle power and size. It promotes the production of ATP, a molecule that supplies energy to our muscles during short, high-intensity activities like sprinting or weightlifting. As a result, muscles can work harder and recover faster, leading to an increase in muscle mass over time.
Moreover, creatine enhances muscle protein synthesis, which is the process of building new muscle tissue from amino acids. By increasing protein synthesis in the muscles, creatine increases the rate at which muscle cells repair and grow after exercise.
May Enhance Brain Function
Creatine isn’t just for your muscles; it also plays a vital role in brain health. Research has shown that creatine supplementation can improve memory, reasoning, and processing speed in both young and elderly individuals. Creatine can enhance the brain’s energy metabolism and improve the production of neurotransmitters that promote better cognitive functions.
Furthermore, creatine supplementation has shown promising results in fighting neurological diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s. It helps protect neurons from damage and can improve cognitive function in individuals with brain injuries.
May Provide Glycogen Storage
It also helps with glycogen storage. Glycogen is the stored form of glucose, or sugar, that our body uses as fuel during exercise. By supplementing with creatine, you’re able to increase your muscle glycogen storage, making you able to train harder and longer without feeling fatigued. This creates a domino effect of further muscle growth and development, as well as an increase in strength and endurance.
May Offer Recovery After Exercise
It can help with recovery after exercise. Muscle damage and inflammation are common side effects of intense physical activity. It may reduce inflammation and cell damage, allowing for faster and more effective recovery after exercise.
May Increase Strength and Power
One of the most well-known benefits of creatine is its ability to boost muscular strength and power. It helps to regenerate ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the primary fuel source for muscle cells during high-intensity exercise. With more ATP available, your muscles can contract with greater force, leading to increased strength and power during your workouts. This can translate to better performance in sports such as weightlifting, sprinting, and football.
May Improve Performance
Many athletes take creatine supplements to help improve their performance during high-intensity exercises. Creatine provides additional ATP, which can help increase muscle strength, speed and endurance. Studies have found that creatine supplementation can lead to significant improvements in power output and muscular strength during weightlifting, sprinting and other activities that require short bursts of intense energy.
Creatine & Caffeine
So, why do these two supplements make a great combination? Well, caffeine shows to enhance the effects of creatine. When in combination, caffeine and creatine can increase maximal strength, power, and endurance during exercise. This is due to the fact that caffeine enhances the absorption of creatine into the muscles, leading to more significant benefits.
Why Take Creatine?
The science behind creatine is fascinating. When creatine is under consumption, it gets storage in muscle cells as phosphocreatine, which ultimately increases the amount of energy storage that the muscle can use for fuel. With more energy storage, your muscles can repeatedly contract harder and for longer periods, leading to more strength and endurance and eventually leading you to push past previous exercise limitations. Studies show that creatine can also decrease the breakdown of muscle tissue, ultimately reducing muscle damage and soreness after exercise and training. Additionally, creatine can help with recovery time, which can lead to more efficient workouts in the long run.
One of the most significant advantages of creatine it shows to increase muscle mass. The substance helps in promoting cell hydration and driving nutrients into the body’s cells. This allows the muscles to maintain the workload for longer periods and enhances the process of protein synthesis. Taking creatine as a supplement shows to increase muscle mass by as much as 10 pounds in a span of just a few weeks. Apart from this, creatine links to improving bone strength, especially in women, which could lower the risk of osteoporosis in the future. So not only does it improve your athletic performance, it can also benefit your health.
What is Creatine Used for?
Creatine involves itself in the energy production process that takes place in your muscles during exercise. When you perform high-intensity exercise, your muscles need energy quickly. Creatine helps to provide that energy by increasing the production of ATP, which is the fuel that your muscles use.
As we’ve already mentioned, one of the main reasons people use creatine is to enhance their athletic performance. It’s particularly useful for activities that require short bursts of intense effort, such as weightlifting, sprinting, and jumping. If you’re able to perform more reps, run faster, or jump higher, then you’ll obviously see better results in terms of building muscle or improving your sports performance.
But creatine isn’t just for athletes. It can also be beneficial for anyone who wants to build muscle or improve their body composition. It helps to increase muscle mass by increasing water retention in the muscles. This makes your muscles look fuller and more defined, which is a desirable effect for many people. Additionally, creatine can help to reduce muscle soreness and fatigue. It means you’ll be able to work out harder and longer.
How Much Creatine to Take
When you’re looking for a dose of creatine, you’re faced with tons of options and it can be hard to narrow them down. Dietary supplements are for sale and receive marketing in dozens of different forms including creatine pyruvate, creatine taurinate, creatine citrate, creatine orotate, creatine phosphate and creatine malate. Other forms of dietary supplements include:
Buy Creatine monohydrate micronized powder
Creatine monohydrate micronized capsules
Creatine ethyl ester HCL (CEE) powder
Depending on the type you’re taking, you may need to take different doses. For example, here are the recommendation for dosages for the forms above:
Take Creatine monohydrate micronized powder – between 2,500 and 5,000 mg daily with water or another beverage
Creatine monohydrate capsules – 7 capsules daily with water or another beverage
Creatine ethyl ester HCL (CEE) powder – between 750 and 1,500 mg daily, mixed into at least 16 oz. of water or another beverage
These are recommendations for doses, but you should always consult a doctor before taking creatine supplements. Doses may vary per individual and they may cause unwanted side effects or interact with medications.
When to Take Creatine?
One of the most common questions about it is whether it should be before or after a workout. The answer is: both. Taking creatine before your workout can help increase your energy and power output during your workout. This is because creatine helps regenerate ATP, the primary energy source for your muscles. Taking it after your workout can help with recovery and muscle growth. It can also help replenish the creatine stores in your muscles that were using up during exercise. So, to get the most benefit from it, consider taking it both before and after your workout.
When it comes to timing, there’s no specific time that’s best for everyone. However, studies have shown that taking it 30 minutes before a workout can lead to better gains in muscle strength and power. On the other hand, taking it immediately after a workout can improve recovery and muscle growth. So, if you’re taking it for performance enhancement, consider taking it 30 minutes before your workout. If you’re taking it for recovery and muscle growth, take it immediately after your workout.
How Fast Does Creatine Work?
After taking supplements, it typically takes around two to four weeks to see noticeable changes in muscle size and strength. This is because creatine is storing in your muscles, and it takes time to build up those stores. During the loading phase, which typically lasts for five to seven days, you consume higher amounts of creatine to quickly saturate your muscles with the compound. After that, you can continue with a maintenance dose to keep your creatine levels high.
How to Creatine Load
Creatine loading is the process of supplementing with high doses of creatine for a short period of time in order to saturate your muscles with this important compound. During the loading phase, you consume 20-30g of per day for 5-7 days, followed by a maintenance phase of 3-5g per day thereafter. The idea behind loading is to quickly increase the amount of it storing in your muscles. It can lead to improved performance during high-intensity exercise.
When it comes to loading, there are different methods you can use depending on your preferences. The most common approach is to consume 5g powder 4 times per day for 5-7 days. This can be mixing with water, juice, or another beverage of your choice. Alternatively, you can take 20g per day for 5 days. Then, switch to a maintenance dose of 3-5g per day. Finally, some people may choose to split the 20-30g into 2 or 3 doses throughout the day.
During the loading phase, you may experience a slight increase in body weight due to water retention within your muscles. This is normal and typically subsides after the loading phase is over. Additionally, you may notice improved performance during your workouts, including increased strength, power, and endurance. However, it’s important to note that not everyone responds to loading in the same way, and individual results may vary.
Side Effects of Creatine
In appropriate doses, creatine is generally safe to take. But like any supplement, there is a chance that it can cause unwanted side effects. Most cases that report negative side effects are a result of misusing the dosage or failing to take the supplement with enough water. The most commonly reported side effects include:
- Muscle cramps
- Dehydration
- Nausea
- Dizziness
- Stomach pain
- Weight gain
- Kidney Problems
- Mood Swings
- Edema
- Fever
Users may avoid these side effects by confirming doses with a doctor before starting a regimen with it. It may also add it to an existing one. Pay attention to dosage instructions and take the supplement with water to stay hydrated.
Where to Buy Creatine
You can purchase creatine in both powder and capsule form at BulkSupplements.com. The company is an industry-leading manufacturer and distributor for pure dietary supplements. BulkSupplements.com is not just a consumer brand. It also supplies pure ingredients to other food and supplement brands to make their products. All products at BulkSupplements.com are manufactured and tested according to current and proper manufacturing practices.
Are you interested in trying it as a dietary supplement? Contact BulkSupplements.com to place an order.
Bottom Line
Overall, the benefits of creatine are numerous and far-reaching, making it a valuable addition to any active person’s daily regimen. Whether you’re looking to boost your strength, pack on muscle mass, improve your brain function, or simply recover faster, it is a supplement worth considering. As with any supplement, be sure to consult with your doctor to make sure it’s safe for you and to determine the appropriate dosage. So what are you waiting for? Unlock the power and take your workouts to the next level!
Overall, creatine supplements are generally safe for healthy individuals when taken in moderation. However, it’s important to be aware of the potential side effects and to consult with your doctor before taking any new supplements. If you do decide to take creatine supplements, make sure to drink plenty of water. Start with a low dosage to allow your body to adjust to the supplement. Remember, creatine alone is not a magic pill for achieving your fitness goals. It’s important to combine creatine supplements with a healthy diet and regular exercise to see the best results.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products and statements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
