Dietary Supplements for Exercise Part One: Creatine
Most supplements are a waste of your money and you don’t absolutely need to take any of them. Good food will always be the best use of your money, but if you struggle to get key nutrients in you may benefit from a select few high quality supplements.
Remember, the supplement market is totally unregulated and profits from selling to under-informed people that are desperate for results. It’s important to really look into whatever you’re taking, get it from a trusted brand that lists all ingredients, and note any changes in your body as you begin supplementation.
Creatine is one good example. It’s a safe supplement that provides a nutrient that that almost everyone fails to get enough of through real food. Almost everyone who strength trains regularly could benefit from getting a bit more in their diet. It’s one of the only supplements I take daily, and I’ve noticed massive differences in my performance (and, as a result, appearance) since I began to incorporate it.
What is creatine?
A natural ergogenic aid. An ergogenic aid is essentially a nutrient/supplement that increases your body’s capacity to produce energy that fuels physical activity.
Where does it come from?
We produce some ourselves! Humans naturally produce about 1g/day. It’s stored it in our skeletal muscle, brain tissue, and blood plasma. This means it’s a non essential nutrient - we don’t absolutely need to ingest it because our bodies make it naturally.
We also get creatine from the meat in our diet! Because creatine is produced by vertebrate animals (including humans, as we just learned), omnivores get about 1g/day. This means that vegans and vegetarians are often more deficient.
This means that in total, with an omnivore diet, humans are already getting about 2g day without supplement.
Why supplement?
When we supplement we can completely saturate the muscle tissues creatine stores. This is pretty hard to do without eating a very high number of calories from meat sources (probably don’t want to do this).
For creatine to have a meaningful effect on performance, we need to increase saturation by a significant amount. It’s efficacy is dependent maximum saturation, which happens when we take in 5g/day. To get tgis without supplementing, we’d need to eat a lot of meat. 1 pound of beef does contain about 5g, but unfortunately much of this is lost during the cooking process as creatine can’t withstand high temperatures. The amount depends on a lot of variables like the cut and the coking method, but a significant amount (probably at least 25%) is lost.
Since we already produce and take in some creatine, it seems like a 3g supplement is sufficient. For a vegan, slightly more may be useful. The supplement I take contains 5g/day (possibly excessive, but not unhealthy).
What benefits will I see?
Faster muscle contraction. Its biggest effect on muscle contraction during short intense efforts (that’s when we rely on ATP to fuel work). Creatine helps you to work harder during workouts. As with any natural ergogenic aid, you won’t get stronger from taking it and sitting on the couch - you still have to do the work. You’ll just have the capacity to do more and recover more efficiently.
Faster, more efficient post workout recovery. Creatine reduces oxidative stress. Essentially, intense exercise creates byproducts that are related to oxidative stress. These byproducts accumulate and lead to muscle fatigue and atrophy. Creatine inhibits this build up allowing you to perform more before reaching fatigue and recover faster afterwards.
Muscle protein synthesis. Creatine may also directly affect hypertrophy due to it’s connection to increasing capacity for muscle protein synthesis. Muscle protein synthesis is how we rebuild muscle post workout. Read more here.
Cognitive performance! Brain creatine storage might increase by up to 10% with supplementation. The neurons firing in our brain are reliant on ATP stores, so having sufficient stores is key.
Endurance performance? Its effect on endurance performance isn’t as noticeable, but it might still help endurance athletes during training sessions when doing sprint work, etc. It follows that in the long run, better training sessions may have a positive effect on overall fitness and endurance performance.
How it works
*Skip this section if you don’t care for a rudimentary biology lesson.
Creatine is metabolized in the liver and kidneys. It’s then distributed to muscles with the highest energy demand via the bloodstream. Creatine is distributed and stored long term in mostly in skeletal muscle - smaller amounts are stored in the liver/kidney and brain tissue.
Creatine improves performance by helping our bodies to recycle ATP quickly! Maybe you remember from biology that ATP is an important energy currency. If you don’t, just know that ATP fuels the work we do.
ATP is especially important for work done in short intense efforts/bursts (like sprints and heavy lifts). It’s basically the easiest form of energy for our body to access and use in a pinch. Longer endurance efforts rely heavily on different energy systems like fatty acid oxidation and aerobic glycolysis, so creatine’s effect isn’t as direct.
So how exactly does creatine help recycle ATP?
The enzyme (creatine-kinase) can help attach to a phosphate group to a creatine. This creates a phosphocreatine. This phosphate can then be easily donated to an ADP molecule to create new ATP rapidly. An ADP is just one phosphate away from being a glorious ATP filled with energy to fuel our efforts and that creatine can help!
Why not just store more ATP? Why do we need creatine to recycle it mid workout?
Since our muscles have limited capacity to store ATP long term, having a means to rapidly generate it mid-workout is super beneficial for intense efforts where we cannot on other means of energy production.
Starting to supplement
Remember, we are getting only 1-2g/day without supplementation. Omnivores are typically getting about 1g more per day, so supplementing is even more important for vegans and vegetarians that want to build muscle and perform better!
I recommend you take a regular dosage of 3-5g daily. After 3-4 weeks of consistent daily intake, your muscles will become completely saturated and you’ll start to see that ‘meaningful effect on performance’ I mentioned.
Timing
Timing doesnt seem to be that important. That said, some studies show marginal benefits to taking creatine immediately following your workout. It looks like people who take creatine post workout gain slightly more muscle mass when supplementing than those who take it before their workout. There was no difference in actual muscle strength gains. If you take the recommended dosage of creatine, it will saturate muscle stores regardless of the time of day it’s taken.
Selecting a good creatine
Select an affordable powder form creatine monohydrate. This is the most basic and cost effective creatine. No need to take any fancier versions. I recommend a powder - liquid doesn’t have a long shelf.
As with all supplements, choose a supplement that openly lists all ingredients. If you see words like “proprietary blend” - put it down and look for another brand!
FAQ
Should I take ’deload’ breaks?
No need. With significant supplementation, your body might start to produce less on its own, but that seems to be ok because the body quickly adapts and begins to produce the normal amount when supplementation stops.
Should I “load” at the beginning?
Some people, mostly bodybuilders, participate in a loading phase. This means taking about 25g/day for a week or so! The point is to completely saturate muscles quickly and see the benefits ASAP. If you really need to see those results immediately, look into it. Warning: your stomach might not respond well. I’d recommend taking a normal dose. 3 weeks isn’t that long.
Will it make me gain water weight?
Some people complain about this. Creatine draws water into the muscle cell, so muscle cells do become physically larger. In my experience, the issue is super exaggerated and mostly just discourages women from trying it! As long as you continue to drink sufficient water, you’ll be fine! Plus, imagine how much higher your metabolism will be and how good you’ll look and feel with all that new muscle mass.
Sources:
Creatine timing https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328075908_Timing_of_Creatine_Supplementation_and_Resistance_Training_A_Brief_Review
Effect of creatine supplementation during resistance training on lean tissue mass and muscular strength in older adults: a meta-analysis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5679696/
Reactive oxygen, recovery and skeletal muscle mass
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3893116/
Lesser known benefits of creatine (blog w links)
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/creatine/