The effects of creatine should be evident in a week in most using the supplement— with your training volume and strength increasing. That said, it's not a magic pill. When we resynthesise at a high rate, it means potentially we can exercise more readily 1 and may even have a higher intensity session with shorter rest periods required, which hypothetically would aid with hypertrophy 2.
However, you still have to lift the weights and bigger muscles do not always equal increased strength. Really, it depends on your objectives. If you're a thirty or forty-something Dad looking to top-up his strength levels, you'll be getting enough creatine from a high-protein diet. If you're a bodybuilder, athlete or CrossFitter looking for an added edge on your physique or your performance in high-intensity competitions or workouts, then creatine supplementation could work for you.
Read on to find out why. It's not all about an increase in muscle mass, though. Creatine also has some other benefits you might not be aware of. What you might not be aware of is that this is partially due to a drop in creatine levels in the brain. In another study on a group of elite rugby players , researchers from the UK Sport Council found that creatine worked just as well as caffeine at wiping out the effects of sleep deprivation on performance during a simple rugby skill test.
So you might be better reaching for a shaker than your morning cappuccino. But if a lack of muscle mass is a limiting factor, creatine certainly has the potential to help you perform better. Away from the squat rack , creatine is also beneficial during short, repeated bouts of high-intensity exercise, like CrossFit and circuit training. In other words, if you sprint, lift or do HIIT, the compound can help you take it up a level.
Players were divided into two groups; group one was given 20 grams of creatine per day for six days, while group two received a dummy supplement that had no effect. Creatine resulted in faster sprinting times , increased strength and also improved jumping performance. Unfortunately they chose not to assess the impact of a half-time orange.
Creatine supplementation can lead to lbs of weight gain in a week — your muscles retain water in order to heighten protein synthesis the building of muscles. This, however, is nothing to worry about, especially for everyday athletes. Put simply, by supplementing creatine, you'll gain weight. But the added weight will help your muscles feel bigger, fuller and stronger. As creatine contains zero calories, it has zero impact on your fat metabolism — so you can take it on a non-exercise day, too.
What about the claims that creatine users are more likely to get cramps? In a retrospective study of 26 athletes using creatine for up to four years, US researchers found no difference in the reported incidence of muscle cramp or injury compared with creatine-free athletes.
There are also a few reports of kidney problems linked with the use of creatine. Again, these are mainly isolated case studies where someone with a pre-existing medical condition developed further health problems while using creatine. Elsewhere in the news cycle, creatine was once purported to increase your risk of testicular cancer. It was reported that researchers in the US had found a link between 'muscle-building supplements' and the cancer, but didn't specify which supplements were spiking the user's risk.
The study had lumped together 30 varying pills and powders under the umbrella term of 'muscle-building supplements' and, according to examine. Taking a superdose of 20,mg of creatine for four or five days is safe but unnecessary, says nutrition adviser Chris Mohr.
Research suggests that your strength gains will catch up after 30 days. Plus, when your muscles hold more water, they look bigger and more pumped up. While creatine is most popular with strength athletes, it has a number of other potential effects , such as better brain performance, glucose metabolism, and bone mineral density, that make it a supplement that can benefit everybody. Many studies have been done on creatine and it has been established to be a safe supplement to take.
Ciaran Fairman explains this and other common misconceptions in the article " 6 Side Effects of Creatine: Myths Debunked. Since creatine has only been recently introduced to the market, it is hard to determine whether or not there will be long-term health effects from its use.
However, it must be noted that, to date, there is not one reputable study that shows creatine has any dangerous side effects. It is not necessary to load creatine, but it can help you see results faster. To get the full benefit of creatine you must saturate your muscle cells with it. Using a small dose 5 grams , saturation will take up to 30 days, depending on the individual's lean body mass.
However, by using a loading dosage of grams per day for five days you can quickly saturate your muscle cells, then use a maintenance dosage grams to keep your creatine levels high. It is not necessary to do so, but it can help. Your body has an internal equilibrium which you can swing in your favor for a duration of time, but over time that equilibrium will eventually swing back. This means that taking excess creatine for a short period of time weeks may temporarily increase your creatine phosphate stores, but after a while your body's feedback mechanisms will likely bring the levels back down to normal.
This mechanism may be to decrease your body's own production of creatine or to downgrade the number of receptors that admit creatine into the cell. Taking time off from creatine can help bring your body's equilibrium back into a state wherein taking excess creatine will be beneficial again. There has been much discussion on when the best time to take creatine is, but I believe taking it post-workout is the most beneficial time for several reasons:.
No, not exactly. Once again, for creatine to work your muscle cells must be saturated with it. Inferences were based on the confidence interval range relative to the smallest clinically meaningful effect to be positive, trivial, or negative.
Unclear results are reported if the observed confidence interval overlaps both positive and negative values.
Twenty-two subjects were initially recruited for this investigation. Three subjects dropped out for no given reason. Nineteen healthy recreational male bodybuilders age: There were no differences between groups for any of the baseline measures. While there were trends, no significant interactions were found Table 1.
Thus, using magnitude-based inference, supplementation with creatine post-workout is possibly more beneficial in comparison to pre-workout supplementation with regards to FFM, FM Table 2 , Figure 1 , Figure 2 and 1-RM BP. There were no significant differences between the groups.
Both groups consumed 1. The results from this study suggest that consuming creatine monohydrate post exercise may be superior to consuming it pre exercise with regards to improving body composition i. This is the first investigation to demonstrate that the timing of creatine intake affects the adaptive response to exercise.
When subjects were pooled together, the gains in fat-free mass and muscular strength in the current investigation were similar to others. They also performed better in bench and leg press tests [ 15 ]. Using a single-limb training model, men and women who supplemented with creatine after training of the arms increased their muscle thickness. Interestingly, males had a greater increase in lean tissue mass with creatine supplementation than females [ 4 ].
In elite male handball players, creatine supplementation for 32 days resulted in an increase in 1-RM bench press 8. These and other investigations indeed show that creatine supplementation in general has a significant anabolic and performance-enhancing effect [ 34 , 35 ] which is in agreement with the current investigation. Mechanistically, creatine supplementation has been shown to increase muscle fiber size, enhance myosin heavy chain protein synthesis, activate satellite cells as well as increase the concentrations of intramuscular ATP and PCr [ 6 , 7 , 12 , 36 , 37 ].
However, whether supplement timing has a role in the adaptive response vis a vis creatine has not been previously investigated. Certainly, the most important aspect of the current investigation is that post workout supplementation of creatine may indeed be superior to pre workout supplementation. Data on protein and amino acid supplementation indicate that indeed the pre, during and post workout window are important times to consume nutrients though some studies demonstrate a neutral effect [ 20 — 24 , 38 ].
One study examined the effects of a solution of whey protein consumed either immediately before exercise or immediately following exercise.
They found no difference in amino acid uptake between the groups [ 18 ]. In six subjects 3 men, 3 women that randomly consumed a treatment drink 6 g essential amino acids, 35 g sucrose or a flavored placebo drink 1 hour or 3 hours after a bout of resistance exercise, investigators found no difference in the anabolic response whether the drink was consumed 1 hour or 3 hours post exercise [ 39 ].
Indeed, others have found that timed protein supplementation immediately before and after exercise does not further enhance muscle mass or strength in healthy elderly men who habitually consume adequate amounts of dietary protein [ 40 ]. Also, timed protein-supplement ingestion in resistance-trained athletes during a week training program does not further enhance strength, power, or body-composition changes [ 41 ].
On the other hand, consuming an essential amino acid solution immediately before resistance exercise elevates muscle protein synthesis to a greater extent than when the solution is consumed after exercise. The investigators postulated that this may be due to an increased delivery of amino acids to the leg [ 29 ]. Another study investigated the importance of immediate P0 or delayed P2: 2 hours post exercise intake of an oral protein supplement upon muscle hypertrophy and strength over a period of resistance training in elderly males.
In response to training, the cross-sectional area of the quadriceps femoris muscle and mean fiber area increased in the P0 group, whereas no significant increase was observed in P2.
These investigators found no difference in the glucose or insulin response at P0 or P2, thus, it is not likely that differences in the hormonal environment contributed to the difference in muscle mass gain.
Thus, the early intake of an oral protein supplement after resistance training is important for skeletal muscle hypertrophy [ 42 ]. Thus, taking the exact same supplement but timed pre and post exercise is significantly better than consuming it in the morning and evening. Our investigation did not involve the use of protein, carbohydrate or amino acids.
Moreover, it is entirely possible that the difference in body composition and muscular strength between the two groups was the result of a small sample size. All other subjects experienced an increase in strength.
The use of recreational bodybuilders in the current investigation is advantageous because it is difficult for highly trained individuals to experience an increase in FFM or muscular strength in the time frame allotted for this study. It should be noted that the nutrient intake kcals, carbohydrate, fat and protein was similar between the groups.
In fact, each group consumed a high protein diet 1. Nevertheless, another consideration to take into account would be that because these recreational bodybuilders were already consuming large quantities of protein, this could have affected the results i.
In conclusion, post workout supplementation with creatine for a period of 4 weeks in recreational bodybuilders may produce superior gains in FFM and strength in comparison to pre workout supplementation. The major limitations of this study include the small sample size as well as the brief treatment duration. Future studies should investigate creatine supplementation using resistance trained individuals for a longer duration. Eur J Appl Physiol. Med Sci Sports Exerc. J Int Soc Sports Nutr.
J Am Diet Assoc. PLoS One. Chilibeck PD, Magnus C, Anderson M: Effect of in-season creatine supplementation on body composition and performance in rugby union football players.
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