Why I Decided To Supplement With Creatine

My Creatine Journey

I told my friends I was taking creatine to support my strength training journey and they immediately thought I was taking steroids. Spoiler alert – it’s not. But I do think there is a lot of confusion about what creatine is and what it helps with. So, let’s discuss. 

What is Creatine?

Creatine is a naturally occurring non-protein amino acid produced in your body and delivers energy to your muscles. Ultimately, it helps increase your strength and enhance your performance in the gym. About half of creatine comes from your diet (e.g., red meat, seafood) and the rest is produced in your liver and kidneys.1 95% of the body’s creatine stores are found in the skeletal muscle and the remaining 5% is distributed in the brain, liver and kidneys2 That being said, even though we are able to produce creatine in our bodies and obtain creatine through our diet, creatine is degraded into creatinine and excreted in the urine at a rate of around 2 grams/day.7 

And this is where supplementation could become helpful – especially if we aren’t getting enough creatine in our diet. Those who have lower muscle creatine stores, such as those who are vegetarian, are more likely to experience muscle storage increases of 20–40%, whereas those with relatively high muscle stores may only increase stores by 10–20%, when supplementing.5 This is increased even further when you creatine load with an adequate mix of carbohydrates and protein.

When you supplement with creatine, your body stores it as phosphocreatine, which helps to produce the energy molecule adenosine triphosphate or ATP. ATP is used for brief, powerful movements that last fewer than 10 seconds (think of a sprint). Even without supplementing, your muscles have an existing ATP molecule – but only a small amount. ATP is broken down by removing a phosphate, which turns it into adenosine diphosphate (two phosphates). In order to make more ATP, the muscles need to get the missing third phosphate. 7

Creatine helps this process by donating its phosphate so that ADP can become ATP again7. Thus ,the more ATP you can produce, the more energy you have to help with short duration, high intensity exercise.  Because long-duration, low-intensity activities rely more heavily on a different energy system, they are not typically enhanced by creatine — in other words, creatine will help a sprint but not a marathon.7

Although there are many types of creatine supplementation, this article will focus on creatine monohydrate, which to date, is the most extensively studied and clinically effective form of creatine for use of nutritional supplements in terms of muscle uptake and ability to increase high-intensity exercise capacity5

Benefits

Providing energy isn’t the only thing that creatine supplementation can help with. It is regularly reported that creatine supplementation, when combined with heavy resistance training, leads to enhanced physical performance, fat free mass, and muscle morphology 3 For example, one 2007 double blind study, found that participants who supplemented with creatine, protein, and carbohydrates, coupled with a 10 week structured resistance training program led to greater improvements in their 1 rep max (the maximum amount of weight you could lift at one time) than those in the same program who only supplemented with only protein or carbohydrates. 4

Additionally, when creatine supplementation is combined with heavy resistance training, muscle insulin like growth factor (IGF-1) concentration has been shown to increase, which researchers suggested, could be the result of increased output in the gym, rather than the supplement itself. Additionally, changes in lean body mass were positively correlated with more total creatine stores.

There may also be cognitive benefits to creatine supplementation as higher brain creatine is associated with improved neuropsychological performance, and recently, creatine supplementation has been shown to increase brain creatine and phosphocreatine.6 Additionally, cognitive processing impairments, that have been caused by either aging or sleep deprivation, could be improved via supplementation. However, the ideal dose of creatine to maximize brain uptake is not known.

How Much Creatine Should You Take?

A typical, safe creatine supplementation protocol consists of a loading phase of 20 g CM/d or 0.3 g CM/kg/d split into 4 daily intakes of 5 g each, followed by a maintenance phase of 3-5 g CM/d or 0.03 g CM/kg/d for the duration of the supplementation period. 2 Note that if you are not comfortable with doing a higher loading phase, you will still get the benefit of creatine, it may just take a slightly longer time period for your body to adapt.

Ingesting smaller amounts of creatine monohydrate (e.g., 2–3 g/d) will increase muscle creatine stores over a 3–4-week period, however, the performance effects of this method of supplementation are less supported. 5

Note that for the adolescent population (under 18), only a limited amount of research is available and as such, it is often not recommended for consumption.

Potential Downsides

Here is what people often say are potential downsides of creatine supplementation:

1. Creatine supplementation makes you gain weight

2. Creatine supplementation can negatively impact your kidneys

3. Creatine supplementation can cause dehydration or cramping

4. Creatine is unethical and can be considered a steroid

5. Creatine causes hair loss

But is any of this actually true? The only clinically significant side effect reported in the research literature is that of weight gain, which is typically due to increased water retention. Other anecdotal claims of side effects including dehydration, cramping, kidney and liver damage, musculoskeletal injury, gastrointestinal distress, and anterior (leg) compartment syndrome, and hair loss. However, there is no scientific evidence to support these claims. 5, 6

My Creatine Journey

I do think that I was able to experience some “gains” from creatine after supplementing consistently for a month. What I found is that although creatine didn’t turn me into Wonder Woman, I was able to push a little harder in the gym and thus felt that more confident in moving towards my goals. I did not gain weight, lose hair, or experience dehydration or cramping. Actually, in terms of body composition, I felt that I leaned out a little bit.

Creatine is still something I supplement with regularly and I believe it’s helping me progress faster to where I want to be.