Creatine is one of the best-known and most effective supplements for enhancing muscle growth, muscle strength, and athletic performance. Your body naturally makes creatine from amino acids, and it’s also found in some foods, especially red meat and seafood. You’ll need to supplement with additional creatine, though, if you want it to boost exercise results and athletic performance.
Supplementing with creatine has been thoroughly researched, and there is a lot of evidence to support its benefits. You might hear some people caution about adverse side effects, but there isn’t really any evidence to back up those fears.
Creatine’s Benefits
When you take creatine supplements, your body uses it to provide energy for exercise. It also works on a cellular level to help your body build muscles. Supplementing with creatine can
- Enable more total work per training session.
- Improve hydration at a cellular level.
- Aid in muscle repair by improving cell signaling.
- Boost muscle size, strength, and power.
- Reduce muscle and protein breakdown.
- Improve strength, endurance, and power for a variety of athletic disciples and types of training.
- Help prevent muscle loss (sarcopenia) for older adults.
Most of the research on creatine focuses on athletic performance, but there are also studies indicating it can lower blood sugar, support heart health, improve brain function, and help treat some neurological diseases. More research is needed to verify these potential benefits.
What the Research Says
With many supplements, there just isn’t enough research to know if it actually does any good or if the claims are just hype. That’s not the case with creatine. There are lots of studies on it, and those studies support that it is safe and effective. There are even long-term studies (up to four years) demonstrating that sustained creatine use at typical doses has no harmful effects.
You might have heard that creatine is linked with liver or kidney damage, but research does not show that is true for healthy people. If you have a preexisting liver or kidney issue, though, check with your doctor before supplementing with creatine. There is also no evidence that creatine causes dehydration, hair loss, or fat gain. It may, however, cause bloating if you take more than 10 grams per day.
Tips for Taking Creatine
Creatine monohydrate is the most common form of this supplement. It is safe, effective, and inexpensive. You might see other forms available, but creatine monohydrate is the one that is well researched. There’s no reason to try any other type of creatine, at least not unless more research shows the others are more or equally effective.
When you first start taking creatine, you can see benefits faster if you do a loading phase. To do this, take four, five-gram servings of creatine per day (20 grams total per day) for five to seven days. Then switch to a maintenance dose of 3 to 5 grams per day. You can skip the loading phase, but if you do, it will take about four weeks to start seeing results.
For personalized guidance on how to integrate creatine and other supplements into your fitness goals, schedule an appointment with one of our nutrition coaches.