Creatine Supplement
What is all the hype around taking creatine?
What is Creatine?
Creatine is an amino acid and is a naturally occurring compound stored primarily in
muscle but also in the brain and other tissues.
Creatine Monohydrate is the best form to take and is the form of creatine that has
been the most researched. Recently other different types have been marketed but what
you will want to take is creatine monohydrate.
Creatine is one of the most researched and proven supplements in the fitness world. It
works so well in our bodies as creatine is naturally stored in our muscles but it can also
be found in our brain and other tissues. It helps our body make ATP- which is our body's energy currency and ATP can be used anywhere in our bodies, from our brain to our gut.
Do I already get creatine?
Most of us already consume some creatine from our diets as it is naturally found in
animal muscle including fish. We can also make creatine through one of our energy
systems.
However, the doses we get from food are quite low and when you supplement with creatine, this is at ergogenic doses, meaning at higher levels to aid performance.
For example, 5g creatine would mean eating 1kg of beef- which is a lot. Supplementing with creatine, helps our body make more ATP quicker and given ATP is our body’s energy currency and works all over the body, it can have multiple benefits.
Creatine is a very versatile
supplement and it is not just for those who want to lift more weights in the gym.
Benefits of creatine:
Creatine is not just those who are “hard out” at the gym.
There have been numerous studies that have shown positive impacts from a cognition perspective. (This is early research at the moment, but it is very promising). It has been shown to have a positive impact on memory and brain function, especially in situations where people may be sleep deprived.
For vegans or vegetarians, given they are less likely to consume animal products, it has been shown by research that they have shown better outcomes for memory and reaction times than meat eaters. Which is an extra bonus.
From a performance perspective, creatine works great in repeated high intensity efforts
with short recovery, like HITT classes and F45, sprint training etc.
Creatine can also significantly increase lean tissue, which is great for building muscle
mass.
Other benefits include:
• Improves performance for high intensity exercise
• Improves recovery
• Improves training induced adaptations
• Increase isometric strength
• Can increase training load and quality
• Improves brain function
• Early research that it improves cognition in older people
What type of creatine to take?
Creatine can be found in either a capsule or a powder form.
Capsules- 2.5g per capsule
Powder - 5g per scoop
Capsules do tend to be more expensive than powder, so taking powder is cheaper.
You can buy these in the big tubs and use them at home. Either option is fine and some find the capsules easier for travel etc, so it is a personal choice.
How much do I take?
There are 3 phases to how you can supplement with creatine:
• Fast load
• Long load
• Maintenance
If you are new to taking creatine, you can either opt to do a fast or a long load, either is fine. Once you have “pre-loaded” you can then move into a maintenance phase.
1. Fast load
Take a higher dose of creatine approx. 0.30g/kg of your body weight for 5-7 days.
This can be spilt into 4-6 different doses throughout the day. For most people the doses
need to be spilt as this can be a large amount of creatine in one go.
Note: Taking high doses of creation can cause an upset stomach- so trial and error maybe needed to assess your stomachs tolerance.
To work out how much you need take if you were doing a fast load: use your body
weight and times it by 0.3. E.g. if you weighed 100kg: 100 X 0.3 = 30g per day for 7
days. This is a high amount for 1 serve so ideally you would spread that out over
several times a day.
2. Long load
Take a daily creatine supplement of approx. 0.05g/kg of your body weight for a
minimum of 30 days. Once the 30 days are up you can move into a maintenance phase.
3. Maintenance
Once you have done a loading phase (either fast or long) you can reduce your creatine
intake to approx. 0.03g-0.05g/kg of your body weight. The difference in amounts, will
come down to your stomach tolerance levels.
To see the benefits, you should take creatine daily regardless if you train or not that day.
The Literature shows that our body turns over 1-2g of creatine per day which is roughly
0.025g/kg of your body weight. Anything over this of 0.03g-0.05g/kg will be beneficial
Key notes
Creatine can be taken at any time of the day
When pre-loading, make sure you drink more water- you can become more dehydrated
Your scale weight may increase due to the increase in water retention.
