Should You Be Supplementing With Creatine?

Creatine is quite possibly the MVP of supplements for the natural lifter.

While it's not a steroid and is a perfectly natural substance found in the food we eat, creatine does have a long list of performance enhancing benefits that almost sound like cheating when you lay them out in a list.

It's commonly taken as a supplement in the form of creatine monohydrate powders (the purest form of creatine available).

So, what is it?

As mentioned above, creatine is a naturally occurring substance found in the food we eat and it's estimated that the average omnivorous diet (mixture of meat and vegetables) brings in around 1 - 2g of creatine per day.

Due to the list of foods that contain the highest amount mostly containing animal products (the word creatine is actually contrived from the Greek word for meat - 'kreas'), these levels will likely be a lot lower for those of a vegetarian or vegan persuasion.

95% of the creatine we take into our body is stored in your body's skeletal muscle, while the other 5% is stored in the brain, blood and other tissue.

How can it help you?

Creatine has multiple interesting uses but we're going to mostly focus on those relevant to lifting and gym performance in this blog article.

It's almost a running joke among the lifting community at this point that creatine is the closest thing a natural lifter can get to taking steroids without actually taking steroids... and for great reason!

It's been well documented that creatine supplementation can lead to an increase of up to 15% in both strength and work output during max effort sets of resistance training (Kreider, 2003).

And that's not all - it perhaps comes as no surprise that alongside those performance enhancing benefits, lifters can also see a marked increase in Lean Body Mass (LBM) through creatine supplementation, likely at least in part, as a direct result of the strength increases it brings.

An extract from the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition in 2007 analysed a number of studies, finding that subjects supplementing with Creatine Monohydrate actually increased their LBM by an extra 2 - 4 lbs over a 4 - 12 week period than those taking a placebo.

This may sound like an insignificant amount to some but believe me, a potential (not guaranteed) extra 2 - 4lbs of muscle mass in 12 weeks? That's awesome!

Alongside this, it's also worth noting how our body does store some creatine in the brain, with some research concluding that higher resting creatine levels can improve cognitive function on a day to day basis - especially in relation to short-term memory - however, long-term effects still require more research (Avgerinos, 2018).

How much should you consume daily?

While some available research has led coaches to recommend a loading phase of creatine initially when taking the supplement - typically involving taking 4 x 5g doses spread across a single day for five days (Hultman, 1996) before then slowing down to take an amount equal to 0.03g per KG of BW once stores are theoretically 'saturated.'

However, this method has been anecdotally found from clients of my own over the years to cause gut distress for some individuals so it could be worth simply utilising the 0.03g per KG of BW amount straight off the bat and maintaining this load as a consistent amount each day roughly around same time for convenience sake.

To get even more basic, most creatine supplements a single scoop is between 3 - 5g which will be a sufficient amount for the vast majority of the population, so simply taking one consistent scoop a day is likely the most basic way to take the supplement.

If you want to be really "optimal" with intake and perhaps get the absolute max out of it, there is some evidence to say that taking creatine post workout alongside a mixture of carbohydrates and protein may be the absolute way to go.

Are there any side effects?

It's not uncommon when speaking about creatine on social media that we're inundated with messages - especially from women - expressing concern about creatine causing water retention, bloating and of course, bulkiness.

This whole 'women + anything to do with lifting = Bulky She Hulk' argument needs to stop but I'll save this conversation for another day.

The main point to note here is that most of these bloating and water retentive side effects occur most frequently if a loading phase is undergone and can likely be avoided if just taking a lower, consistent dosage per day.

It's also worth noting that while you may potentially expect to see a scale weight rise of between 1 - 2% during a loading phase, this is predominantly water weight - not body fat! - and is likely to be very short lived (Kreider, 2003).

Finally, given that creatine supplementation saturates your skeletal muscle cells, any extra water will predominantly be stored intramuscularly. This will more than likely give the appearance of improved body composition and 'fuller' muscles.

And that's creatine! Or at least a basic outlay anyway.

Thanks for reading,
Team Atlas