Creatine by Alison

Creatine

As we begin to enter competition season, and because we have just done a supplements replenish! I thought I would write a bit about creatine.

Creatine has been used, and studied, as a performance enhancer for hundreds of years. It is safe, effective and legal, and works equally well on male and female athletes, and people of all fitness abilities.

It is produced naturally by our bodies, so adding additional creatine to your diet supplements your existing stores. It can also been found in the food we eat, mainly meat. If you have a vegetarian or vegan diet you likely won’t take in as much through what you eat, compared to a diet that does include meat, and you will probably notice more of a change should you start supplementing.

But what does creatine do? The most well known benefits of creatine are to improve athletic performance. This occurs due to an increase in the phosphocreatine stores within our muscle fibres, which are needed for energy production. The increase in phosphocreatine allows a greater production of ATP, the energy currency of muscle cells, therefore reduces the rate of fatigue and improves performance during high intensity exercise. It has a positive impact on:

• strength

• ballistic power

• sprint ability

• muscle endurance

• resistance to fatigue

• muscle mass

• recovery

Regardless of your fitness level, creatine has been found to increase muscle growth both through the increase in water content of muscles, and because it boosts the formation of proteins which are the building blocks of muscles. It also helps skin and hair by keeping it hydrated, and increasing the collagen production.

Recent studies have found that creatine provides benefits not just to athletic performance, it can also have a positive impact on cognitive functions. Neurological diseases show a reduction in phosphocreatine levels in the brain, therefore supplementing with creatine can increase those diminished levels. By providing the brain with this additional energy, and increasing dopamine levels, it can reduce symptoms and progression of neurological disease when used alongside conventional medicine.

As with all supplements they will affect everybody in slightly different ways, so don’t expect to have exactly the same results, in exactly the same way, as your training partner. If you want to try creatine, 5g a day taken around exercise is a good place to start. Make sure you drink plenty of water and always check compatibility with other medication, for example it is not advisable to take creatine if you are also taking brufen or blood pressure medication due to the strain placed on your kidneys.

So if you are looking to try supplements, creatine is a safe place to start and if you don’t get a squat clean PR, you might find you instead have a glowing youthful complexion! But always do your research first. Ask the questions we all want to hear the answers to:

“will my muscles get bigger? - Yes”

but also ask the difficult questions

“are there any side affects? - Yes”

And use these results to inform your decisions about supplementing with creatine.