Why is creatine so powerful?

Creatine is a natural source of energy that helps your skeletal muscles contract. It helps create a steady supply of energy, so that your muscles can keep working. Half of your body’s supply of creatine comes from your diet, especially protein-rich foods such as red meat, seafood, and animal milk. Your body produces the other half naturally in your liver, kidney, and pancreas.

Manufactures make creatine supplements for people who work out a lot or don’t get enough creatine in their diet. A creatine supplement is used to improve athletic performance, but it may also boost your brain function, fight certain neurological diseases, and accelerate muscle growth. Studies show that regularly taking creatine and exercising can help increase muscle growth.

When should you take creatine?

You should take creatine every day, even on the day’s you don’t train.  It is important to maintain the creatine stores in the muscles, to that you get the optimal effect from the dietary supplement, but if you skip a single day, it doesn’t matter. The optimal effect of creatine comes if it is consumed in connection with training, and preferable right before or right after. If you want, you can take it together with your protein shake right after training. If you have doubts about how much creatine you should consume daily, I am here to tell you, that you should consume approx. 0.03-0.05 grams per kg. body weight per day.

How well does it work?

In most cases, you will be able to achieve a growth in muscle mass of up to 20-30% when you consume extra creatine, but remember that it is not the same for everyone, for some it works better than for others. There may be people who respond very well to the dietary supplement, and some who respond less well. If it doesn’t work for you, it can be because your muscles already possess a high concentration of creatine, either from your diet or what you yourself produce in your own body. 

5 health and performance benefits of creatine

Helps muscle cells produce more energy

Creatine is being converted into a compound of creatine and phosphoric acid by our skeletal muscles. Phosphocreatine aids the formation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the key molecule your cells use for energy and all basic life functions. ATP is also the source of energy your cells use when you exercise. So, creatine helps maintain a continuous energy supply to your muscles during intense lifting or exercise.

The rate of ATP resynthesis limits your ability to continually perform at maximum intensity, as you use ATP faster than you reproduce it. A creatine supplement increases your phosphocreatine stores, so that you can produce more ATP energy to fuel your muscles during high-intensity performance.

Can improve brain function

Creatine plays an important role in brain health and function. Research demonstrates that your brain requires a significant amount of ATP when performing difficult tasks. Research has also shown, that taking a creatine supplement, may improve short-term memory and intelligence, since higher resting levels of creatine have been proven to enhance performance in cognitive tasks such as recognition memory.

According to PubMed Central (A highly respected database from the national institutes of Health) older people, using a creatine supplement for two weeks significantly improved memory and recall ability. They also found out that creatine in older adults, may boost brain function, protect against neurological diseases, and reduce age-related muscle loss.

May reduce fatigue and tiredness

A creatine supplement may reduce fatigue and tiredness.

There is growing evidence, that a creatine supplement might enhance cognitive function under sleep deprivation conditions, which means that creatine can make you feel less tired if you haven’t slept well.

According to PubMed Central, a 6-month study in people with brain injury, showed that the people who used a creatine supplement experienced a 50% reduction in dizziness, compared to those who didn’t use a creatine supplement. Furthermore, only 10% of the people that used a creatine supplement experienced fatigue, compared to the 80% from the control group that didn’t use a creatine supplement.

Improve high-intensity performance

Creatines direct role in ATP production means, that it can improve high-intensity exercise performance.

According to the journal of science and medicine in sports, a study done by PubMed Central in 2016 showed that a creatine supplement is beneficial in sports involving intermittent high intensity exercise, and has been shown to improve performance of measures such as repeated sprint, speed and jump height.

Creatine also improves a numerous of other factors such as (strength, muscle endurance, muscle recovery and muscle mass)

May fight neurological diseases

A factor in several neurological diseases is a reduction of phosphocreatine in your brain, and since a creatine supplement can increase these levels, it may help slow down disease progression.

A study done by Science Direct suggests that a creatine supplement promotes the repair of peripheral nerve injurie by affecting the polarization of macrophages.

According to PubMed a study including mice with Huntington’s disease, showed that creatine restored the brains phosphocreatine stores to about 72% of pre-disease levels, compared to the 26% for the control mice, that didn’t receive extra creatine.

4 other studies with animals also done by PubMed, suggests that taking creatine supplements may also help treat other diseases too, including (epilepsy, spinal cord injuries and Alzheimer’s disease).