What is?
Creatine is a naturally occurring substance found in and produced by the body. An average man would have about 120 grams of creatine stored primarily (95%) in his muscles. The body makes about 50% of this from the amino acids glycine, arginine, and methionine, while the rest comes naturally from the diet.
What does?
Creatine is mainly found as creatine phosphate in our muscles. Its function is to regenerate ADP back to the body’s primary energy molecule, ATP. As local ATP can only fuel intense muscle contraction for approximately 2 seconds, creatine provides the immediate backup energy to continue intense muscle contraction for approximately 15 seconds. After that, carbohydrates are required. Clearly then, creatine has a very direct impact on high intensity activity like weight training.
But the application of creatines to weight training only starts there. When loading muscles with creatine, the body is forced to dilute the intramuscular creatine phosphate concentration by absorbing water. The result is that the muscles swell; This typically equates to a lean mass gain of around 2-5kg in the first week with 20g or more per day of quality creatine monohydrate. This weight gain is maintained as long as creatine is.
But by diluting the concentration of creatine in muscle, the body has also diluted local stores of amino acids, enzymes, and other growth factors. As a result, the muscle rebalances the concentrations by absorbing additional nutrients, nutrients now available for the synthesis of new tissue.
The effect of creatines on real and permanent muscle growth and performance is remarkably comprehensive. That:
supplies energy that leads to immediate strength gains that allow for more intense and productive workouts
swells muscle cells with fluid and nutrients, which is a powerful growth stimulus in itself (forces local production and release of mechanistic growth factor, insulin-like growth factor, and others)
accelerates recovery and growth with increased local supply of nutrients and intracellular growth factors
creatine also increases the proliferation of muscle satellite cells that become new cells or add to existing cells
All in all, creatine is an amazing product; Probably the only advertised natural supplement that REALLY provides visible and significantly measurable gains, fast.
How is it taken?
It is often recommended that creatine be ‘loaded’ at 30g/day for 7 days and then ‘maintained’ at only 5-10g/day thereafter. Our experience is that 20g/day, every day, is a silly and slick approach, but still a much more effective method for most people. Doses should be divided into 5g portions, ideally taken with high-carbohydrate meals.
Since muscle uptake of creatine is greatly enhanced by insulin, it is recommended that creatine be consumed with a carbohydrate-rich meal. There are times when non-insulin-dependent absorption can occur, but generally, without elevated insulin levels, creatine absorption peaks at around 30% and will not reach the level of intracellular creatine concentration possible with normal insulin levels. insulin.
when to take
A misconception about creatine is that, being a source of energy, it can give an immediate boost to workouts. This is not true. Like carbohydrates, creatine must be stored in the muscle as creatine phosphate at the time of training. This takes more than a few minutes. To ‘charge’ the muscles, creatine must be taken with meals throughout the day. Since insulin sensitivity is higher earlier in the day, the best absorption would theoretically occur earlier in the day. The reality is that it makes no noticeable difference.
In relation to exercise, it is best to take creatine before AND after training along with your post-workout recovery meal. Your ‘pumped’, insulin sensitive muscle will show better transport and uptake of creatine and therefore amplify the benefits outlined above. But, because it takes 90 minutes after ingestion for creatine to reach peak concentration in your blood, you need to take it before your workout so it’s in your blood afterwards.
Creatine ‘transporters’
Creatine transport products started with EAS Phosphagen. In what was a stroke of marketing genius, EAS recognized that they could make ridiculous profits by loading a product with cheap glucose and selling it as the most scientifically advanced revolutionary insulin that powers blah blah blah. Other manufacturers quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Interestingly, no legitimate company has lowered the price to realistic levels yet? Maybe everyone is milking it as long as they can?
The point is that creatine transporters work; but they ARE mostly cheap sugar, so the question of “value” gets blurred. You can freely buy the same amount of ingredients for about 90% less, BUT in terms of results per dollar, few products come close. Also, many people take creatine with insufficient dietary carbohydrates and then wonder why it doesn’t do anything. Creatine transporters solve your problems.
The bottom line is that the choice is yours. Creatine transporters should be a totally unnecessary waste of money. A little diligence and commitment will save you a lot of money! But if you can’t commit to doing it right, creatine transporters will blow your mind (and your wallet), they really do work!
Buffered Creatine (Kre-Alkalyn)
The latest creatine “technology” is buffered creatine. Marketing claims that creatine converts to creatinine in much less acidic environments than previously believed. They say that even water, with its PH of 7, is too low. As such, the water retention and stomach cramps that people sometimes complain about are due to excess creatinine in the stomach.
Buffered creatine is highly alkaline and as such apparently resists conversion to creatinine. Our experience is that while Kre-Alkalyn is far superior to most creatines (good weight and strength gains with no bloat), it is no better than GenTecs. GenTecs Creatine also does not appear to have the same negative feedback as many other creatines and is not buffered. GenTecs creatine is also much cheaper than Kre-Alkalyn, like 1/10 the price, but uses more. We would definitely recommend Kre-Alkalyn over most other creatines (when available in Australia). But at the moment, you are not missing anything by using GenTecs.
liquid creatine
Some brands offer liquid creatine with the promise of better absorption. Unfortunately, creatine is not stable in solution and quickly converts to creatine’s byproduct, creatinine. Creatinine does not offer any of the performance benefits attributed to creatine, so these products are best avoided. Even if creatine could somehow hold its shape in solution, liquid creatines are usually in low dose, 100ml bottles with less than 1g creatine per ml. This makes liquid creatines (as well as being almost useless anyway) more horribly priced than even the worst creatine carriers.
Myths and other stupidities
Coffee does not appreciably affect creatine absorption any more than chromium helps. The coffee/caffeine myth arose due to a totally delayed study done in 1996. From this study, it was postulated that the negative effect of caffeine on insulin production and sensitivity could be responsible. In truth, the study was so silly that it didn’t really conclude anything and the effect of caffeine on insulin is not even remotely significant enough to affect creatine absorption. It might be a big deal when looking at a coffee-soaked muscle cell in a Petri dish, but in the real world it’s negligible.
Another myth, and a personal annoyance, from the medical community is that creatine COULD have health risks because we don’t yet know if it doesn’t. Of course, nothing suggests that you should be at risk, but the medical community has no time for common sense.
The fact is that creatine is a substance produced by the body and is found naturally in the diet. Supplementing with a little more won’t make you sick. You can’t ‘overdose’ on it. The body is capable of doing what it has to do with it unless you are already a very, very sick person!
conclusion
Creatine seriously is the greatest supplement available. It offers ‘drug-like’ effects with no risk of adverse side effects (apart from mild stomach distention in a small percentage of people). It comes with our highest recommendation.
