I’ve taken it with some good results. Just curious if the science behind it. I’ve seen a ton of the good effects, but not much on the bad. Maybe there isn’t really much bad to it? What about hydration? Is it true that you have to drink more water on creatine or is this not applicable after the “loading” phase? If you take creatine and don’t get enough water can this damage organs?
Any input here would be great. Sorry if this has been answered before.
I train jiu jitsu a few days a week and lift weight occasionally mostly push ups/pull ups a few days a week nothing crazy.
What’s a good cycle of creatine? Daily? A few times a week?
It seems to help, a little, with muscle endurance and recovery, it’s one of the few performance supplements that has a lot of clinical data to back it up. It has some non performance benefits related to mood and metabolism (supposedly, I can’t really feel them, but they could be subtle). The only thing for me is I have to take it with a full meal or I’ll cramp up and puke, I used it in my pre workout for a while and it was not fun. Standard dose is 5 g per day which makes it easier in a drink than taking in pill form. I don’t have any links but you can easily google creatine benefits and find actually clinical data.
Creatine is actually one of the few sports supplements that we know to have benefits.
Generally speaking, creatine is safe to use for adults. I believe there to be very little to no information on adolescence and creatine usage. For some people, it has some side effects, but it seems like you are not one of them.
Also, not everyone responds to creatine supplementation. But since you believe you do, I guess that’s irrelevant for you as well.
Basically, if you don’t have kidney or liver problems, diabetes, or any other potentially relevant disease, you, generally speaking, should be fine taking creatine for a while. But, we have very little data on long-term exposure to creatine, so no one can really give you reliable information about that.
In the future, if you develop any kind of health problem (not necessarily talking about anything severe), make sure to tell your doctor about your supplementation and/or simply stop supplementing it.
If you supplement it, make sure to drink enough, even after the loading phase. But your body will give you pretty clear signals. Just listen to your feeling of thirst and watch the color of your urine.
Edit: Regarding dosage: I don’t do loading phases and just take 5g/d for a few weeks and then stop using it for a while. This way I feel no side effects and see results after a while.
Some main points from my sports nutrition class last semester:
•The body synthesizes about 1 to 2 g of this nitrogen-containing organic compound daily, primarily in the kidneys, liver, and pancreas, from the amino acids arginine, glycine, and methionine
• Creatine passes through the digestive tract unaltered for absorption into the bloodstream by the intestinal mucosa
• all ingested creatine incorporates within skeletal muscle via insulin-mediated active transport
• 40% of the total exists as free creatine - the remainder combines readily with phosphate to form phosphocreatine
• Creatine supplements sold as creatine monohydrate (CrH2O) come as a powder, tablet, capsule, and stabilized liquid
◦ Ingesting a liquid suspension of creatine monohydrate increases intramuscular concentrations of free creatine and phosphocreatine by 10 to 30%
• Creatine supplementation at the recommended level exerts ergogenic effects in short-duration, high-intensity exercise without producing harmful side effects
•Caffeine diminishes the ergogenic effect of creatine supplementation
◦ little evidence of risks for creatine
-Overall it is pretty safe, the research does show some ergogenic effects but caffeine diminishes the effect when taken with it!