What is creatine & what does it do?
Creatine is a substance that is found naturally in the bodies muscle cells. Its purpose is to help your muscles produce energy while heavy lifting or high-intensity training. Similar to amino acids, Your body can produce creatine from the amino acids glycine and arginine. Creatine is formed of three amino acids: L-arginine, glycine, and L-methionine. Around 95% of it is stored in skeletal muscle, and 5 percent is in the brain. When taking creatine supplements, your phosphocreatine stores increase. Your creatine levels are affected by a few different factors such as, your exercise levels, your meat intake, the amount of muscle mass you have and your hormones levels.
Benefits of creatine:
Creatine will increase your levels of Creatine phosphate. Increased levels of Creatine Phosphate means that you can work out for longer periods of time and complete say ten reps instead of eight. With the ability to handle an added workload over the course of say a month leads to increased lean muscle mass, heavier lifts and in turn a stronger you. Creatine also makes your muscle's look fuller as creatine brings water to the muscle. This combined with the extra strength benefits, arugably makes creatine an essential supplement.
Creatine side effects:
There are many myths surrounding the side effects of Creatine. As with every supplement we always recommend that you check with your doctor to ensure you don't have any underlying medical issues. However, if you have healthy kidneys there's absolutely no reason why Creatine would cause them any damage. There was even a study done specifically on Creatine and the effects on the kidneys. In this study a man that had one kidney took 20g of Creatine a day (this is 4 times the recommended dosage) and there were no damages found. Creatine makes you gain weight? As mentioned earlier on, yes, you do gain a little water weight! However, Creatine gives your body the energy to increase the workload you put your body through in a training session. It means that you can handle more and will therefore lead to greater muscle mass.
When to take creatine – before or after workout?
On Non-Workout Days, it is recommended to add 5g’s to a high-carbohydrate drink and consume first thing in the morning, upon waking. On workout days, there is no right or wrong time to take creatine, whether it’s just before, during or just after your workout, it will boost your creatine stores regardless of the time of day! However, the most popular times to consume the supplement is just before your workout.
Is creatine bad for you?
Creatine is one of the most researched supplements on the market and also one of the most purcahsed in 2022. Creatine is produced in our liver and creatine supplements are used to simply increase the amount that we are getting since we only produce small amounts. If you are taking the recommended daily servings creatine is found to be safe to use hwoever it is also worth checking if any supplement is suitable for your body if you have an underlying health problems.
