CREATINE: What? When? Why? How much?

Creatine has become an extremely popular supplement in recent years as the use of legal supplements has become the ‘in thing’ in both professional and increasingly recreational gym goers and athletes. As a scientist and keen trainer myself I understand why people want to use technology to aid in their performance and development. With the sports industry being a billion dollar business and huge amounts of money resting on minuscule differences in performance, athletes and clubs need to utilise every avenue available to its full potential to have the best chance of winning. However, there is a large difference between professional athletes taking supplements under the expert guidance of nutrition & physiology scientists and the average male or female using supplements with little to no knowledge about what the supplement is and whether it is worth the money they are investing.

Creatine (creatine phosphate) is a molecule found in the most rapidly producing energy system in the body - ATP/PC, which underlies the performing enhancing and protective properties of creatine. I have heard many people give their opinion on creatine, a fairly common comment is “it can be bad for your kidneys”, however creatine is an extremely well researched supplement and no evidence as of far has been found to support this statement. Too much creatine taken at one sitting may lead to diarrhoea and not drinking enough water whilst taking creatine may lead to stomach cramping, but as said above no long-term damage is caused. There are many different forms of creatine available on the market, but creatine monohydrate (CM) is the cheapest and most effective. CM can be supplemented through a loading protocol where by 0.3g/kg bodyweight is taken for 5-7days, followed by 0.5g daily dosages, this can be broken down into 2-3 smaller doses per day with one being just prior to/during exercise.

The most significant amount of evidence supports these effects of creatine:

• Increased Power Output

• Increased weight

• Decreased Fatigue

• Decreased depression

(Rahimi, 2011, del Favero et al., 2012) (Candow et al., 2011)

INCREASED POWER OUTPUT

With creatine phosphate being the compound broken down to ATP to provide energy in high intensity exercise of short duration it should seem fairly obvious that our muscles would be able to produce greater force on a repetitive basis if we can maintain or increase creatine levels in the muscle. With figures from one meta-analyses assessing potency as “Able to increase a 12% improvement in strength to 20% and able to increase a 12% increase in power to 26% following a training program using creatine monohydrate. There appears to be a high degree of variability, (R) (R) (R) is correlated with the amount of creatine reaching the muscle tissue, additionally there doesn’t appear to be much difference between the trained and untrained individual.

INCREASED WEIGHT

A large amount of research supports a strong correlation between creatine use and overall weight increase; this is as a result of water retention in individuals who respond to creatine supplementation. (Cancela et al., 2008) (Eckerson et al., 2008)

DECREASED DEPRESSION

Notable due to seeming to be related to serotonin and augmenting SSRI therapy & appears to have a gender difference which needs to be explored more.

Creatine appears to have a less notable effect on a number of other elements. In conclusion, it appears creatine is probably one of few supplements that have a significant impact on aiding strength and power development due to its nature in the body. As with most products there seems to be numerous variations of creatine on the market, despite how well companies manage to advertise their products your best bet is probably sticking to creatine monohydrate, which is usually cheapest also. Creatine is best used for these who compete in short duration high intensity sports such as Power/Weight-lifting, sprinting etc.

CREATINE = MONEY WELL SPENT

CANCELA, P., OHANIAN, C., CUITIÑO, E. & HACKNEY, A. 2008. Creatine supplementation does not affect clinical health markers in football players. British journal of sports medicine, 42, 731-735.

CANDOW, D. G., CHILIBECK, P. D., BURKE, D. G., MUELLER, K. D. & LEWIS, J. D. 2011. Effect of different frequencies of creatine supplementation on muscle size and strength in young adults. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 25, 1831-1838.

DEL FAVERO, S., ROSCHEL, H., ARTIOLI, G., UGRINOWITSCH, C., TRICOLI, V., COSTA, A., BARROSO, R., NEGRELLI, A. L., OTADUY, M. C. & DA COSTA LEITE, C. 2012. Creatine but not betaine supplementation increases muscle phosphorylcreatine content and strength performance. Amino Acids, 42, 2299-2305.

ECKERSON, J. M., BULL, A. A. & MOORE, G. A. 2008. Effect of thirty days of creatine supplementation with phosphate salts on anaerobic working capacity and body weight in men. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 22, 826-832.

RAHIMI, R. 2011. Creatine supplementation decreases oxidative DNA damage and lipid peroxidation induced by a single bout of resistance exercise. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 25, 3448-3455.

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