Creatine 101
At CP, and through my online consulting, I get a lot of questions from clients and parents about the use of creatine. Is it safe? Is it steroids? Does it just make you gain water weight?
There are a lot of misconceptions about this rather innocuous substance. Let’s start off by defining what creatine is, and what creatine isn’t.
What is creatine?
Creatine is an amino acid made by the body on a daily basis. It is made in the liver from 3 different amino acids (arginine, methionine, and glycine) taken in from our diet. Creatine is also taken in directly from meat as animals contain creatine in their skeletal muscle as well. The sources are split quite evenly, unless you are a vegetarian, in which that you case you may be creatine deficient. Creatine is an energy substrate used for high-intensity activities - such as sprinting, jumping, throwing and lifting weights. Basically supplementing with creatine has been shown to safely allow athletes to work harder, longer by maximizing their skeletal muscle stores.
Is creatine safe?
Creatine is the most studied supplement in the history of the world. If you go to pubmed and type in creatine into the search engine you will get over 42,000 responses. That is a lot. The definitive answer is if taken according to recommended dosages (ie - 3-5 grams per day) creatine is completely safe. No study, long or short term has shown adverse effects of creatine. The most widely accepted side-effect of creatine supplementation is the gain in lean body mass. For athlete’s and recreationally active people, a little extra muscle is usually a good thing.
The key things to keep in mind here are that there is no need to load (ie - 20 grams per day), regardless of what the label tells you. 3-5 grams per day is completely acceptable and has been shown in research and with thousands of athletes to be effective and safe. Also make sure you are purchasing a highly pure creatine monohydrate. It should say it is either micronized or Creapure brand. These are highly pure and held to the loftiest of standards.
According to the European Food Safety Authority, “Provided high purity creatine monohydrate is used in foods for particular nutritional uses, the Panel considers that the consumption of doses of up to 3g/day of supplemental creatine, similar to the daily turnover rate of creatine, is unlikely to pose any risk.”
As perhaps the greatest testament to its safety, it is completely legal in the NCAA, International Olympic Committee, FIFA (soccer), and ATP (tennis) -traditionally the four most stringent governing bodies in sports when it comes to supplement use. The NFL, NBA, and MLB all permit it as well.
Is creatine steroids?
Steroids are anabolic exogenous hormones injected or swallowed. These are not substances consumed in large amounts in our natural enviorment and they have drastic effects on the endocrine system. Creatine is none of those things. It is not a hormone in anyway and does not affect our endocrine system. We consume creatine on a normal daily basis, we do not consume large amounts of steroids on a daily basis.
Does creatine make you gain water weight?
In short, yes it does. Creatine does cause the body to hold more water due to increased water uptake by skeletal muscle. This is a good thing, as volumizing the muscle cells can help increase their size, and it is only a few initial pounds. In the long term though, the added weight from creatine is not just from water, as the supplementation helps athletes to gain lean muscle tissue. The key oint is the added weight is not just from water.
Do you need the newest, fanciest, and most expensive form of creatine?
Creatine ethyl-ester, Kre-alkalyn, conjugate creatine and who knows what else are completely unecessary and may contain harmful ingredients. They are also significantly more expensive with a complete lack of extra benefits. Speed of absorption of creatine is irrelevant. Once you take 3-5 grams per day for a month your muscles will be saturated, and from there it is just maintaining that saturation. These products may help you saturate sooner (or they may not) but overall they do not increase benefits whatsoever. You need pure, simple inexpensive micronized or Creapure creatine monohydrate.
Interesting benefits of creatine.
Besides the physical performance enhancing benefits of creatine, it has some other studied and documented benefits. Creatine has been shown to improve cognitive abilities. Studies have shown that it can increase performance on tests of cognitive abilities. In one example the researchers concluded that “supplementation with creatine significantly increased intelligence compared with placebo.”
There have also been several successful studies on animals in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as: Parkinson’s, Huntingson’s, ALS, and muscular dystrophy. Due to the success of many of these animal trials, human trials for many of these diseases are underway. Pretty impressive stuff.
Conclusion.
Creatine is safe when taken properly from a pure source. You do not need some crazy new version that they will try to push on you at many supplement stores. Take 3-5 grams per day everyday for greatest results.
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14 Responses to “Creatine 101”
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About Me
Brian St. Pierre is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and Certified Sports Nutritionist (CISSN). He received his degree in Food Science and Human Nutrition with a focus in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Maine. With his contagious passion and enthusiasm, Brian is a young and exciting new face in the industry. -
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Hi, Brian.
It’s a bit off topic, but at the beginning of the article, you mentioned your online consulting. Given your duties at CP, do you spend a lot of time with online consulting or do you simply take on whatever is manageable on top of your work at CP?
I’ve always wondered what top coaches/consultants do to successfully juggle online and offline work. e.g. stuff like determining the max number of people they are able to work with at one time, how much time they can devote to one area or the other without spreading themselves too thinly or going crazy.
Even the briefest of glimpses into how someone successful like you seamlessly manages this would be appreciated. However I understand if this was an inappropriate place to ask this and as such you decide against saying anything.
As always, thank you for the informative blog.
Hey Brian,
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, but I know that I personally find creatine to be particularly dehydrating to the point of feeling flushed/rapid heartbeat (even if I chase it with a Nalgene of water) and for it to really upset my stomach. Any idea how common this problem is/ if there is a solution? It’s been annoying me for a while that I can’t use this relatively ubiquitous supplement.
-Tom Boziuk
PS Hope all is well at CP! I must say I miss those Saturday sessions something fierce.
Hi Brian - I’ve been including a teaspoon of creatine in my post workout shake for the last 6 months but that’s on the four days a week I usually work out. On the other days I don’t have a morning shake and as a result haven’t been getting any creatine.
Do you think I should be getting some creatine everyday no matter what?
Also you didn’t mention what to consume it with but I know that wasn’t the point of the blog entry. Like I said, I usually have a protein shake (ice, water, protein plus, frozen fruit, a teaspoon of Greens + and a teaspoon of creatine. Is that method of consuming creatine effective? I’ve had people (acquantainces - not a professional) tell me to take it with a fruit juice like apple juice but I want to stay away from all that sugar and empty carbs.
I bought two containers of BCAAs but haven’t used any yet. If you could discuss your thoughts on that supplement in a future blog entry that would be great.
Thanks for this post, Brian. Great summary.
If there’s no need to load, does that mean there’s also no need to cycle on and off creatine supplementation? One of the claims of Kre-Alkalyn and the like is their lack of need for cycling in comparison to plain ol’ creatine monohydrate.
Arthur,
To give you a quick answer to your question. I do quite a bit of online consulting, but there is a limit to what I can take on. CP is my full time job and I commute over an hour each way, so my time is unfortunately limited! If you want to know more about this, just shoot me an email, I will be glad to help you out.
Tom,
Unfortunately there will ALWAYS be exceptions to the rule. There are always people who fall outside the bell curve. There is some evidence of a very, very small percentage of people who have this response, but it is usually taken care of with proper hydration.
It is possible that for whatever reason your body is not a fan of direct intake, maybe you have some upregulated mechanism that will remove to much water from the GI tract when you directly ingest creatine. Anything is possible. Are you just taking the Biotest product?
If you aren’t able to take creatine, it is not that big of a deal. While beneficial and effective you will still make most of your gains from proper training and nutrition, as you know.
When are you coming back to CP?
Arden,
I don’t think it is too big of a deal to not have it on non-training days. You can certainly get some results with that, especially if you are taking 5 grams per day. Research has typically shown that 3 grams per day is just fine for maintenance. You are taking 20 grams per week (5 grams x 4 days) compared to 21 grams per week (3 grams x 7 days), I think the differences are negligible. Taking it in that smoothie is perfect. You do not need simple sugars, your smoothie will raise insulin plenty high to absorb the creatine you need.
A blog on BCAA’s will definitely be coming up at some point. Thanks for the idea.
Ian,
I don’t see any need to cycle creatine. There has been no evidence of down-regulation of creatine uptake or production from long-term use. Again we are not talking about exogenous drugs here, but a normal dietary product. You are more than welcome to cycle, it seems to benefit some people psychologically, but there is no physiological need.
Brian,
Yeah, it was the Biotest creatine. I figured it wasn’t a huge deal, plus there’s plenty of room for improvement in other things (cough cough, diet) to really worry about it.
I’ll be back whenever I’m back in Boston, which will most likely not be until Thanksgiving/X-mas season. I’ll be sure to get a lift in whenever I’m in town, though!
-Tom
[...] I have had a number of discussions about creatine, so now I will just say - read the full article. [...]
Brian,
I have been off of creatine for a couple months. And in the past couple months, I’ve noticed a longer duration of DOMS after resistance training.
Assuming everything is held constant -same dedication to dynamic warm-up before workouts, a little foam rolling on non-lifting days, active lifestyle in that I’m not sitting at a desk all day, and roughly the same style of training - a Turbulence training/Afterburn set-up - would you think this prolonged soreness can be reduced somewhat from getting the added creatine back in my diet?
Thanks!
Kevin
Kevin,
Going back on creatine can certainly help in that regard. It seems to work synergistically with protein and carbs to promote better recovery.
I would also make the point that even during weight loss and metabolic conditioning phases it is unnecessary to go off creatine. It will not harm weight loss efforts in any manner.
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