All About Creatine

What is Creatine?

Creatine Monohydrate is naturally produced in the body and is stored as energy in muscle cells. This nutrient is also found in a variety of foods, including lean red meats and leafy green vegetables. However 10 lbs of steak would need to be consumed to get the same amount in your system as you do when supplementing, as supplementation saturates the muscle cells.

Creatine Monohydrate is, by far, one of the most popular and most effective bodybuilding supplements in use today due to its quick-resulting size and strength gains. It is not uncommon to gain 5-10 lbs or more of body weight within 2 to 3 weeks of use with noticeably larger muscles.

Creatine is a high powered energy processor naturally found in red muscle tissue, this helps recycle the muscles ultimate energy source, ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Increased levels in muscle optimize energy turnover, this means that you have more energy for high intensity exercise and faster recovery, during and after workouts.

Studies have found that Creatine Monohydrate increases an athlete's maximum effort, improved their endurance capacity and delayed fatigue over those in the placebo group. Additional research shows that supplementing with Creatine Monohydrate increases muscle power and torque.


How it works
To understand creatine's function in the human body, you need to understand the body’s energy requirements during exercise.

During anaerobic exercise or explosive power sports, i.e. bodybuilding, weight lifting, power lifting, sprinting, football lineman blocking, etc., the muscle contraction takes place in the absence of oxygen. During anaerobic exercise the compound the muscle cells burn for fuel, or metabolizes for the release of energy, is called ATP (adenosine triphosphate).

The stored ATP quantity in the cells is limited to an 8-12 second supply and must be constantly resynthesized for continuous muscular movements. During the first 5-10 seconds of exercise a phosphate molecule splits off of the ATP compound and energy is released to fuel the contraction. The new left over compound is called ADP (adenosine diphosphate). Creatine that has combined with the phosphate molecule to become phosphocreatine delivers the phosphate molecule to the ADP, reforming ATP. This resynthesized ATP molecule is then ready to be utilized for energy again.

Because the body only stores an 8-12 second supply of ATP it is important to increase the pool and maximize the resynthesis of ATP from ADP. The result is a more explosive muscular power, increased stamina and endurance, greater intensity and less muscular fatigue combined with muscle mass increase.
Muscle volumizing involves the movement of fluids from the blood stream into skeletal muscle, causing our muscles to swell. This process has been termed volumizing. This phase of muscle growth can account for as much as 1-2 kg of additional body mass within the first couple of weeks of using these supplements.

Protein synthesis causes muscle growth that can be attributed to the ability of creatine monohydrate to increase muscle energy capacity. Since this supplement would allow us to exercise more intensely, our gains in muscle mass should be greater. It has been shown that biochemical markers for new muscle production (protein synthesis) increases following creatine monohydrate use.


Effects

This supplement has been proven to enhance strength, improve endurance, build lean muscle mass, speed up recovery time and reduce muscle fatigue and soreness in such high intensity sports as bodybuilding.

Various studies have proven it to increase performance and muscular size, it also lowers plasma ammonia accumulation, supporting the hypothesis of improved ATP replacement.


It helps resistance training (bodybuilding etc.) by bloating the muscle with creatine rich fluid. This allows for greater leverage and requires the muscle to move less and lift more weight. This may seem trivial but some researchers today think that one of the stimulating factors of steroid use is water retention. Anabolic steroids may actually work in part because of cellular fluid retention in the muscles. The swelling action and the related stretching of the cells may in it self cause a reaction which stimulates the muscle cells to grow. Therefore in some respects this supplement might be as good as steroids.


Creatine monohydrate supplementation also tends to decrease the formation of lactic acid in the muscles. Lactic acid is a by product of metabolism that is formed during exercise. This acid accumulation will eventually hinder performance. (the intense burning pain whilst training intensely)

Side Effects

In addition to the positive characteristics of creatine monohydrate supplementation, one known beneficial side-effect is called cell-volumizing. An increase of creatine uptake by the cell draws water intra-cellular (inside the muscle cell) and increases the size of the muscle cell.

Taking more than the recommended dose at one time could result in an upset stomach and possibly diarrhea and not drinking the recommended amount of water (8 - 12 cups per day) could result in dehydration. This is because the muscle cells will continue to absorb water from the rest of the body, this dehydration could also cause cramping.

Dehydration concern is valid since much of our body water follows creatine into skeletal muscle, possibly depriving our remaining tissues of fluid. As a consequence urine output often decreases during supplementation. This may lead to impaired thermoregulation and subsequent heat exhaustion, especially if training heavily in hot environments. Weight loss for certain sports is often achieved through fluid restriction which, in combination with creatine monohydrate use could lead to dehydration.

There have been some reports of strains, muscle pulls and cramps following the use of such bodybuilding supplements. This side effect may be related to an electrolyte imbalance as a result of dehydration. Drink plenty of fluids while taking creatine monohydrate.

Weight gain is the most commonly reported side effect within the first few weeks in response to using the supplement. This side effect may be beneficial in certain sports such as, bodybuilding or weight lifting but be less desirable in other sports such as, distance running or other endurance sports.

There was some concern that the fluid retention as a result of using such supplements could increase a person's blood pressure. This subject was recently a topic of a scientific study that found that blood pressure did not increase following 5 days of use.

Creatine monohydrate may have some positive side effects on Cholesterol and Protein Synthesis. It may improve our cholesterol levels independently, or by its effect on exercise. In addition, volumizing may in itself stimulate the production of new muscle proteins. Both these effects, however, need to be further substantiated by additional scientific research.

There are many misconceptions concerning creatine monohydrate use. Most of these are due to it being wrongly associated with hormonal (Steroid) means of increasing muscle mass. These side effects include breast formation in men, a reduction in penis size, hair loss in men, hair growth in women and stunted growth in children. Creatine increases exercise performance at the level of muscle energetics. It does not effect hormone levels to increase muscle mass, such as is the case with anabolic steroids.

If you decide to use this supplement, follow the guidelines. Make sure you keep yourself hydrated during your workout or event and warm up properly.
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