Have you heard of creatine? Your mom probably thinks it’s a steroid, but who cares what she thinks. Creatine is epic and I don’t say that about many supplements.
In a world where so many supplements simply make your piss more expensive, creatine is the knight in shining armor that actually gets the job done.
During high intensity exercise, your body’s demand for energy (ATP) skyrockets (1). As your ATP depletes, performance drops. However, creatine helps resurrect ATP which buffers against fatigue.
This is why creatine also buffers against metabolic stress which is that blood gorging pump feeling that makes it hard to complete your sets (2).
However, creatine only works when your muscles are increasingly saturated with it along with the water it draws into your muscle cells. You can get creatine through foods like beef and fish, but the dose in food is too minimal to make a difference, thus supplementation is the way to go.
Supplemental creatine also contains no animal by-products, so dorky vegans can also take it assuming it’s not in pill form which has a gelatin covering (3).
Creatine increases your strength, power, and endurance performance (4-8). It gives you that edge that everybody looks for in a supplement. This performance boost can translate to additional muscle growth, but creatine already directly increases muscle size via a few mechanisms.
It does so with a proportional increase in water and muscle cell growth (9-13). When you diet, the enhanced protein balance also helps you retain more muscle mass as well (14). Due to muscle cells absorbing water, the scale will go up temporarily. In fact, the scale going up indicates it working and your muscles responding well to it.
This is normal and doesn’t make you look bloated because, the additional water goes into your muscles not under your skin. You end up looking more muscular, not soft and puffy (45,46,47).
Creatine also doesn’t cause dehydration as occasionally rumored (30). That’s counterintuitive towards its primary mechanism.
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Thick muscles are cool, but bone health is too. Because creatine improves performance, you will likely impose more adaptations to bone structure, not to mention bones also rely on atp as well.
Indeed some research finds this is especially true when paired with consistent strength training (15,16,67). In older adults, the bone benefits may even be independent of exercise (62).
Creatine is also stored in the brain and creatine brain deficiency can stunt brain development (17,18). Creatine is so powerful in this regard, it can even be taken during pregnancy for the fetus or within children to enhance brain development (30).
Thus, we see creatine have the following brain benefits in a wide range of populations (19,20,21):
Vegetarians, older adults, and stress prone individuals benefit generally benefit more (22). And because creatine nourishes the brain, it’s also been shown to help with depression (23,24).
There are many forms of creatine, but creatine monohydrate is king (32). Creatine hydrochloride, creatine ethyl ester, creatine alkaline, creatine kre-alkalyn, creatine citrate, creatine pyruvate, creatine chelate, creatine malate, and creatine nitrate are all either comparable or worse than creatine monohydrate (25,26,27,63,64).
Interestingly enough, creatine monohydrate is also the cheapest. All other forms have to rely on fancy marketing by airhead meatheads along with inflated prices to swindle gullible consumers.
Human psychology likes to think when something is more expensive or promoted by famous influencers, it must be better (28). But in the case of creatine, the cheapest form is actually best. Balling on a budget, am I right?
Creatine monohydrate is easily absorbed and can fully saturate your muscles (29,30). It doesn’t lack any firepower that other forms can make up, not to mention, it’s exponentially more researched than other forms.
Furthermore, creatine powder (which is also cheaper) absorbs better than capsules (31). Powder is definitely preferable if you’re prone to digestion issues.
Creatine is also highly shelf stable especially in cooler temperatures. Generally speaking, you should consume it right after it’s dissolved in water though (33). Waiting a few hours may be ok too if you have to.
As for when to take it, creatine absorbs best in the presence of insulin or when you’re insulin sensitive. So if you want that extra edge, taking creatine post workout or with a meal is best (30,34-37,66). This increases absorption and generally prevents any digestive issues.
But ultimately, since creatine’s main mechanism is the accumulation of itself within your muscles, taking it at any time is generally fine in the long term.
Creatine loading refers to creatine virgins taking an above average dose to reach muscle saturation sooner because why wait a few weeks when you can have your cake right now?
Indeed, creatine loading can be a viable strategy to reach full muscle saturation within a week (38,68). To do so, you would take 20 grams of creatine daily for 5-7 days. Each day should have four 5-gram dose, each taken with a meal. This prevents or minimizes stomach pain, but people prone to stomach pain probably shouldn’t load up in the first place (39)
Taking the standard dose of 3-5 grams daily will fully saturate your muscles within 3-4 weeks anyways, so no need to creatine load if you want to keep things simple (40,41,42). Smaller people can aim for 3 grams while bigger people especially highly active ones should take 5 grams per day to continue maintaining high muscle creatine levels. If you miss a day, you can double up or not. It’s not a big deal.
Besides the potential for some stomach pain in prone individuals, there’s not much drawback to accidentally taking too much creatine. Long term, your body’s natural creatine production is the same (30).
Because there’s no real drawback to creatine supplementation, there is no need to cycle creatine. That’s a fat myth regurgitated by high school dropouts who want to sound smart.
Your body has a continual benefit from creatine. You can and should take creatine forever to keep muscle creatine levels full (30). In other words, you can take it till you die, so I generally recommend buying it in bulk to save money.
Some people respond better to creatine than others based on baseline creatine levels (43). I’m doubtful at the common term non-responder though as many people don’t take timing and dosing into consideration. Research also finds that people who benefit less from creatine usually have smaller muscles and less type 2 muscle fibers (44).
This makes sense as you wouldn’t have such a demand for energy replenishment if your force production is weak to begin with. So the performance/hypertrophy benefits of creatine may not be worth it until you have some decent muscle size.
In addition, creatine gets depleted quicker with intense exercise and muscle contractions, so benefits may favor more intense trainees exercising often.
So all good things must have a catch. Some preliminary research have found caffeine may negate the effects of creatine because of opposing muscle relaxation mechanisms or stomach pain from the combination (48,49,50).
One study actually found caffeine potentiated the effects of creatine, but the combination didn’t out perform the ingredients separately (51).
Another study found a creatine only group outperformed and grew more muscle than a caffeine + creatine group and the placebo group (65).
Furthermore, the combination may increase digestive issues which may be the true culprit (48,52,53).
All this to say, caffeine and creatine may not be the best of friends. Some pre-workout contains both which you’re likely fine to take as long as you don’t experience stomach issues.
But if you want to confidently maximize benefits, caffeine pre-workout and creatine post-workout (or any other time of day) makes the most sense.
The other potential side effect of creatine is hair loss in men, well sort of. Don’t get your insecurities in a bunch quite yet. This is a common claim based on 1 blurry study.
One 2009 study in Rugby players found increased DHT (dihydrotestosterone) without increasing testosterone (54). DHT is an androgen which explains creatine’s benefits, but it can also contribute to male hair loss. However, DHT has to bind to your hair follicles to cause hair loss. An increase in DHT doesn’t guarantee hair loss especially in healthy individuals.
In addition, DHT is a metabolite of testosterone which creatine doesn’t increase in that study and other studies, so it’s doubtful if the DHT increases are legitimate (55-58). In addition, the increases within the Rugby study were still within normal ranges (59).
DHT levels also increased 56% during creatine loading, but only stayed elevated at 40% once maintenance intake was taken, so any potential acceleration of hair loss doesn’t get further accelerated after loading.
Exercise also increases DHT levels which may be the lynchpin behind why creatine increases DHT due to creatine’s performance enhancing effects (60,61). And we know that reasonable exercise is generally good for hair health.
If you’re extremely prone to hair loss and want to be extra safe, you can avoid taking creatine. However, I’ve never noticed any increased hair loss in all my years of taking it and working with a variety of male clients taking creatine.
We need more research, but without a study actually measuring creatine and hair loss, you likely don’t have anything to worry about.
Creatine monohydrate is arguably the most researched and proven supplement. In a world where supplements consistently let you down and burn a hole through your wallet, creatine is effective and cheap.
Inconveniently though, traveling with creatine makes it look like you’re smuggling cocaine. If and when airport security questions you, simply say, “Chill out bro, that’s my creatine. It’s the white powder Jesus would approve of.” They’ll understand, but might keep some for themselves because you know, creatine is awesome.
Start taking it and don’t stop till you die.
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