Creatine is a massively popular muscle building supplement, amassing around $14 million in dietary supplement sales every year, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Though your liver and kidneys naturally produce creatine, some research indicates that regular creatine supplementation mught be beneficial for muscle growth. The timing of your supplementation has the potential to increase your muscle mass gains, though research into this area remains ongoing.
Pre-Workout Supplementation
Creatine largely aids your muscles in regenerating and increasing their capacity to store ATP, an essential energy source for weightlifting. Therefore, you might feel that taking creatine before your workout can increase your capacity to exercise; however, the side effects of creatine include muscle cramps, strains, upset stomach, diarrhea and high blood pressure, all of which can negatively impact your workout. In its 2000 position paper on the effects of creatine supplementation, the American College of Sports Medicine states that pre-exercise supplementation, particularly with "high doses," can be dangerous and is not recommended.
Post-Workout Supplementation
Sports nutrition specialist Jeremy Likness states that you need to consume a majority of your daily creatine dosage --- around 75 percent --- immediately after your workout. This will help your muscles recover fully from the workout and deliver the maximum amount of creatine and essential nutrients possible. He adds that when taken with a carbohydrate following a strength-training routine, creatine can increase your muscle size and capacity for glycogen storage along with stored phosphocreatine and ATP levels.
Nightly Creatine
When you sleep, your muscles continue to use energy stores to function. When these stores become depleted, you enter a catabolic state that causes your muscles to degrade. Likness advocates taking 25 percent of your daily creatine supplement before bed to improve your muscle growth during this catabolic period, but a 2006 study appearing in the journal "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise" states that creatine supplementation more than five hours after exercise does little to increase muscle strength or size compared with supplementation immediately before and after exercise.
Long-Term Use
Though taking creatine after you exercise can have significant benefits for muscle growth, particularly if you have naturally low creatine stores, sustained high doses over a long period produce diminishing returns for muscle growth and can lead to side effects. An initial "loading dose" of up to 25 g per day is common for the first seven to 14 days of supplementation, but you should then reduce your intake to 2 to 5 g per day for maintenance. Ask your doctor if regular creatine supplementation is safe and beneficial for you.
References
- Bodybuilding.com: All About Creatine; Jeremy Likness
- "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise"; Effects of Supplement Timing and Resistance Exercise on Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy; Paul J. Cribb and Alan Hayes; June 2006
- "Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise"; The Physiological and Health Effects of Oral Creatine Supplementation; Ronald L. Terjung Ph.D. et al; 2000
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Creatine; Steven D. Ehrlich, NMD
- American Council on Exercise: The Latest Scoop--Current Supplement Research Overview; Fabio Comana, M.A., M.S.
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