Creatine is an organic acid that your liver can synthesize from the amino acids arginine and glycine. In addition to eating foods like beef, poultry and eggs to obtain creatine, many athletes take supplements to gain more of the compound. Many times, these supplements provide creatine alone, but you can also take creatine with other proteins, amino acids and carbohydrates if you are trying to increase your muscle mass with exercise.
Loading Dose
All of the muscles in your body contain creatine reserves that release the substance during high intensity exercise like lifting heavy weights or sprinting. The released creatine facilitates the production of the energy source ATP. Early creatine research in 1926 found that the body retains a majority of consumed creatine for the first three days of supplementation. The American College of Sports Medicine, or ACSM, states that later research confirmed these findings, and set the basis for what creatine users call the loading phase. During this phase, you consume 20 g to 25 g of creatine for five to seven days to elevate your muscle creatine reserves to their maximum capacity.
Maintenance Dose
Once the creatine stores in your muscles reach maximum capacity, you cannot continue to elevate them with high doses of the supplement. Creatine storage may have increased up to 40 percent at this point, potentially creating a noticeable difference in the volume of your muscles due to water retention. Consuming anywhere between 2 g and 5 g per day will help you keep your creatine stores at an elevated level. Once you cease to take a creatine supplement, however, your creatine levels should return to their base level within four weeks.
Gaining the Most
People with already low creatine levels appear to experience the greatest increase in muscle creatine stores after supplementation. Vegetarians and vegans may especially experience elevations in their creatine levels because their diets are typically deficient in the compound. Women appear to benefit from creatine supplements less than men, on average, which the ACSM states may be due to having less muscle mass for creatine storage.
Benefits
The performance benefits of elevating your creatine levels with supplements can be significant. A 2006 study appearing in the ACSM’s premier journal “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise” examined 23 recreational bodybuilders taking a creatine, protein and carbohydrate supplement for 10 weeks while exercising. Those bodybuilders who took the supplement immediately before and after they exercised experienced a significant increase in muscle creatine storage, muscle hypertrophy and overall contractile strength from their muscle fibers.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center; Creatine; Steven D. Ehrlich, N.M.D.; June 2009
- University of Illinois; Creatine and Whey Protein Supplements; December 2008
- "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
- American Council on Exercise; The Latest Scoopv- Current Supplement Research Overview; Fabio Comana; 2010
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