Creatine - Everything You Need to Know About a Sports Supplement

Natural doping-free sport is a whole science that requires the maximum return from the visitors of the gym. Nutrition, including sports nutrition, plays a significant role in achieving results. And a striking example of the need to use dietary supplements in CrossFit, bodybuilding and other sports is amino acid phosphates.

What is creatine, why is it so popular, and is it really that effective in sports? You will receive detailed answers to these and other questions in the article.

Chemical structure

Creatine is a nonessential amino acid. If necessary, the body is able to independently synthesize creatine phosphate and transport it to muscle tissue, having in its composition:

• arginine.
• glycine.
• methionine.

Creatine phosphates are found in small amounts in meat foods.

Interesting fact: the amount of creatine in the muscles of poultry and wild birds differs by more than 20%. The same applies to aquarium fish, which contain 40% less creatine than those caught in ocean waters. The answer to this question lies in the fitness of organisms. As you know, if a calf / chicken or other pet moves a lot, then its muscles become stiffer, which is why sedentary animals are specially raised for meat lovers on farms. Mobility stimulates anabolism in any animal - as a result, there is more creatine in trained muscles

Why is creatine revolutionizing the sports nutrition world? It's simple. The body can synthesize a very small amount of a substance (maximum 1 g), at the same time, its concentration in meat compared to other amino acids is negligible. When cooked, it breaks down into arginine, glycine and methionine, which deprives the value of fried and highly cooked foods.

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Reason why it needs to be taken separately

All of the above is the main reason why creatine (in any of its chemical types) is more beneficial to take as a sports supplement. Everything is very simple. With a negligible presence in food, and minimal synthesis from other amino acids, the average person's need for creatine is about 6-8 grams per day.

As for the athletes, their need reaches a phenomenal 30 g per day. And this is not counting the fact that muscles are able to store creatine phosphate in an amount of up to 450 g. To organize such a supply of creatine to the body, it is necessary to consume tens of kilograms of meat per day, which will lead to a rapid failure of the digestive tract. At the same time, supplemented creatine hardly interacts with the digestive system and penetrates directly into muscle tissue.

Effects of creatine on the body

The main effect of creatine when it enters the body is the accumulation of the compound in the muscles.

Other positive effects of amino acid intake:

• Increase in the transport properties of cholesterol in the body. This concerns the increase in the period of excretion of bad cholesterol and the transport of good.
• Build a lactic acid buffer. Lactic acid is the main cause of muscle microfractures, therefore, it acts as a direct precursor to the principle of super-recovery of the body.
• Increased transport of oxygen to muscle groups of the second type (with white fibers).
• Retention and binding of body fluids.

These are just the general effects of creatine that affect the untrained person. Read more about the benefits and harms of creatine here.

Creatine in sports

There is an active debate about the effectiveness of creatine in sports disciplines. On the one hand, it has received widespread support in the bodybuilding community as it allows for significant muscle swelling. On the other hand, people who need to stay in certain weight classes become ardent opponents of creatine.

However, no one disputes that the use of creatine leads to:

• pumping effect on earlier reps;
• a significant increase in muscle mass;
• increasing the efficiency of anabolism when acting on selective androgen receptors;
• increasing endurance by increasing the oxygen content in white muscle fibers;
• accumulation of glycogen stores in water-bound muscle tissues;
• a temporary increase in strength indicators, which allows you to break through the strength plateau and build more muscle mass;
• beneficial effect on the strength of contractions of the heart muscle.

Let's take a closer look at what creatine is for.

Improving performance

This is not a direct but an indirect consequence of taking creatine. The supplement increases strength and endurance during loading and maintenance by almost 35%.

This is how it goes. Saturation of muscles with creatine leads to an increase in fluid in them. In turn, this leads to greater pumping and an increase in the body's need for oxygen. After the second workout, the body begins to adapt to this factor and forces the blood vessels to supply the muscles with oxygen more powerfully. Namely, the amount of glycogen in anaerobic form can be released by the body depends on oxygen reserves.

Therefore, due to pumping, an increase in the amount of oxygen and glycogen is achieved.

In turn, both of these factors directly affect strength endurance. The athlete can lift the same weights, but with more repetitions. And this, in turn, increases fitness: an athlete can work in high-volume training not with 50% of his maximum weight, but with 75-80%. In turn, an increase in endurance with proper training and the use of creatine leads to an increase in strength indicators - working weights become larger, the number of repetitions increases.

Conclusion: indirect filling of muscles with blood when using creatine phosphate triggers a whole chain of events that ensure the growth of all indicators of the athlete.

Filling with water

Another important feature of creatine is water flooding. Is this good or bad? For athletes in the offseason, this is a major advantage.

The water in the muscles protects and lubricates the joints and ligaments. This in turn reduces the likelihood of injury.

On the other hand, this flooding has its own side effects. In particular, due to the abundance of water and the lack of salts (water binding), the athlete may experience convulsions during heavy sets. Therefore, it is best to use contingency insurance while loading creatine. The increase in water in the body is generally a good thing, except for the increasing load on the kidneys at the time of initial loading.

Muscle growth

A running chain of events associated with an increase in the number of blood vessels in muscle fibers indirectly leads to an increase in muscle mass. What is especially remarkable is that the synthesis of new protein fibers also increases, and as a result, it is the "dry" meat that grows. How does this happen?

1. The athlete overcomes the force plateau - the muscles receive new stress, stimulating them to further growth.
2. Additional stores of glycogen are found exclusively in cells, which leads to the fact that excess glycogen (affecting endurance) is excreted along with water.
3. The improved oxygen supply to the muscles leads to an acceleration of anabolic metabolic issues.
4. Under high stress, the creatine bound in the muscles breaks down back into arginine and other amino acids that make up the muscle tissue.

Basically, at some point, muscle begins to build directly from creatine (with sufficient auxiliary amino acids).

Creatine is used exclusively for mass gain. Strength is secondary to athletes who consume this supplement.

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Rollback effects

Creatine is generally disliked by beginner athletes because of the rollback effect. However, it cannot be taken year-round. All this is due to the fact that with prolonged loading and maintaining the level of acid in the blood, metabolism tends to remove excess creatine and does not accept new portions. Already after the second month of continuous intake of monohydrate, its usefulness is reduced to zero. Therefore, it is recommended to take a break of at least 3 months between loads to adapt the body. The period of elimination of creatine from the body is about 7-10 days.

During this time, the athlete observes:

1. A sharp decrease in weight (due to a decrease in the amount of water in the body).
2. Increased fatigue associated with faster accumulation of lactic acid in muscles.
3. Falling stamina.
4. Lack of pumping when performing up to 20 repetitions.

It is important to understand that even when comparing the performance of athletes before and after the creatine cycle, a significant increase in the percentage of lean muscle mass and total strength can be noted.

And the most unpleasant thing for most practicing creatine athletes: when removing it from the body, it is necessary to limit the load. Otherwise, you can easily get an overtraining of the body, and then all the plus obtained from taking the supplement is leveled by a delay in further muscle growth.

Creatine and bones

Creatine has a positive effect on bone density and strength by improving the transport system. However, the effect is only achievable if the athlete takes sufficient calcium and vitamin D3 during the creatine loading cycle. In this case, the absorbed calcium quickly enters the bloodstream and is redistributed by the body in order to strengthen bones in response to increased stress. The effect persists for a long time even after the end of the creatine intake.

Creatine and drying

Creatine is rarely taken on a dryer. Experienced athletes recommend starting drying exactly during the last creatine intake. What is the reason for this?

1. During drying, the nutritional balance changes dramatically. Carbohydrate alternation and a low-carb diet are designed to deplete glycogen stores. The extra glycogen that comes along with the phosphate molecules significantly slows down this process, making the diet less effective.
2. Creatine with a lack of salts and minerals (which are washed out during drying) can lead to frequent seizures. For this reason, training complexes can result in injury.
3. Water retention interferes with diuretics, which are taken in the last days before the competition for maximum relief.
4. Additional water makes it impossible to assess subcutaneous fat levels in the intermediate stages of drying, which can lead to training or nutritional errors. As a result, muscles are burned instead of fat.

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For opponents of sports nutrition

The main reason for the popularity and effectiveness of creatine is two things:

1. Its low content in food.
2. Low bioavailability in food.

However, for those who still prefer to get all the necessary amino acids and substances without sports nutrition, we have provided a table of products containing creatine phosphate.

As you can see from the table, in order to get an acceptable dose of creatine phosphate for training, you need to eat at least 4 kilograms of herring. During heat treatment (i.e. cooking), phosphates, which are extremely unstable to temperature, decompose. As a result, fried or boiled herring contains 4 times less nutrient. In other words, it will take tens of kilograms of herring a day. And the consumption of such an amount of food per day will easily "ditch" the athlete's digestive system.

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Side effects of taking creatine

Creatine phosphate is a relatively new addition to sports. Only in the 96th year, athletes began to actively load themselves with the first samples of sports nutrition. For this reason, doctors are concerned about the risk of unknown side effects due to long-term use (over 30 years).

In the short term, creatine is unlikely to have the following side effects:

• Increased stress on the kidneys. NOT recommended for people suffering from any kind of kidney failure.
• Avitaminosis and lack of minerals, associated with the fact that with an increase in mass and water, minerals and vitamins are concentrated in the bound fluid. You will need an additional intake of multivitamins.
• Sudden convulsions with insufficient water intake.
• Discomfort in the gastrointestinal tract during the loading period, associated with tissue dehydration with insufficient fluid intake.

But the biggest side effect comes from the creatine benefits. It is not recommended to use a creatine load in the presence of heart failure. At the time of taking creatine, the force of contraction of the heart muscle increases. On the one hand, it helps to fight arrhythmias and other problems, and reduces the risk of heart attack. However, when leaving the drug, the opposite trend is observed. Due to the buffering of lactic acid, the heart under severe stress significantly exceeds its standard heart rate, which can lead to painful sensations and even microtrauma to the heart muscle.

Note: reception with smooth loading or lack thereof is quite acceptable. Since the amount of creatine in the blood decreases gradually, the heart muscle has time to adapt to new conditions.

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How to take it right

Creatine Phosphate can be used in two main variations - loaded and unloaded.

In the first case, a faster saturation is achieved, but the consumption of the additive also increases. In the second option, the risk of side effects decreases, but the peak occurs only in the third or fourth week of taking the drug.

In the case of consumption with loading, take as follows:

• 10 g of creatine immediately after breakfast along with fast carbohydrates (juice / sweet water).
• 7 g creatine 2 hours before training, with transport system.
• 13 g after evening meal.

After reaching the peak, it is enough to drink 5-7 g of creatine once a day to maintain its level in the blood. In the case of non-loading use, 8 g of creatine is consumed once a day (in the morning with juice) throughout the entire course of use. The maximum course of creatine phosphate intake is 56 days (8 training weeks). After that, the dosage of creatine is reduced to 1-2 g per day, and after 2-3 days, they completely refuse to use it. Creatine is excreted 21-28 days after the last dose.

Note: exotic types of creatine have their own scheme of use, which the manufacturer must write about on the package. Follow package diagram, if available.

Top Phosphate Supplements

Almost all well-known manufacturers produce creatine:

• Optimum nutrition.
• Ultra nutrition.
• Biotech USA, etc.

Kinds

The quality of the additive for all manufacturers is approximately at the same level. Therefore, it is better to consider creatine supplements by type:

1. Creatine monohydrate. The most popular type of sports supplement. The main advantages are a high degree of purification, minimization of side effects and the possibility of faster loading of creatine in comparison with other types (you can consume up to 50 g daily, shortening the loading phase by 3-4 days).
2. Creatine Phosphate. The cheapest and most effective creatine. Due to the low degree of purification, it has a lower bioavailability, which is why phosphate has to be taken 15-20% higher than monohydrate.But even in terms of it, it remains a cheaper analogue for a quick set of muscle meat.
3. Creatine with the transport system. This is the lazy system from Weider and Optimum Nutrition. The main feature is the presence of hydrolyzed grape juice, which saves the athlete from consuming sweet tea or separate water. Facilitates the use of the drug in conditions of inability to get fast carbohydrates.
4. Creatine hydrochloride. Produced by Biotech. Allows you to spend longer in the loading phase and not experience problems with water retention. Actual benefits over other types of creatine have not yet been proven.

Interesting fact: often creatine monohydrate is added to the composition of the gainer. So, speaking about the effectiveness of the gainer, manufacturers often mention the amount of gained kilograms during the intake of dietary supplements. However, creatine inflates muscles and floods the body with water, which makes it impossible to assess the real growth of muscle and glycogen fibers. And with the end of the gainer intake, the water leaves. This effect is similar to the effect of a creatine cycle. That is why the presence of creatine is often hidden in advertising campaigns for gainers, despite the absence of potential harm to the body. (see here for details on how to take a weight gainer).

Outcome

Creatine monohydrate was a breakthrough in sports in the late 90s. For the first time since the advent of supplementation, athletes' form and mass began to approach the quality and strength of athletes using anabolic steroids. Naturally, we are talking about the performance of athletes from the golden era of bodybuilding, and not the insulin monsters of our time.

Despite the extremely high efficiency, creatine is practically not used in CrossFit, at least its use is reduced during the last months of preparation for the competition. This is due not only to flooding, but also to the fact that due to the presence of water in the muscles, the so-called pumping occurs, which interferes with the development of long-term endurance in exercises with large weights.

Watch the video: The Benefits and Side Effects of Creatine Supplementation. (November 2024).