Creatine THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

Who should supplement?

Everyone!

Your parents & grandparents: creatine reduces age-related muscle loss; this reduces the likelihood of falls, bone fractures, and contributes to a healthier, longer life. It also contributes to better brain health and cognitive performance, and potentially protects against neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease

Your vegetarian friend: cognitive function, short term memory, tests of reasoning & intelligence, reaction times,and exercise performance

Your cousin who runs: improves bone density and mineral content, recovery, and running performance. It's better for sprints and short distances, there is some evidence that longer distance may benefit

You: Immune system function, problem solving skills, mental & physical performance if you didn’t get enough sleep

Can you supplement with it if you’re pregnant - yes! Creatine can help foetal development and prevent potential cognitive development issues

It doesn’t matter if you exercise or not, creatine has many many more benefits outside helping #gains. If you want to use it as an athlete the benefits have been demonstrated in hundreds of studies, it’s great for exercise, mitigating fatigue and contributing to strength

Non-Responders

Some people don't respond to creatine in terms of strength/ performance. There is a spectrum of people who respond really well (like vegetarians as they are quite deficient) and people who do not respond; some people may notice a big improvement in training output and others may not

Should you stop taking it if you have a non-response? I think all of the other benefits (health & aging related) are enough of a reason to supplement outside of the potential performance improvements. Why are there non-responders? The leading theory is that your body is great at creatine production and storage, so these people already have high creatine levels. Lucky ducks!

Creatine monohydrate: 20g per day for the first week, this is called a ‘loading phase’. You can divide this out across the day. After the first week, 3-5g daily

You don’t need to take a break from creatine. Hundreds of studies have been done on this substance and it is clear that it is an entirely safe substance to consume

If you get a blood test done, inform your doctor that you’re supplementing, because a bi-product of creatine supplementation is higher levels of ‘creatinine’ (when creatine gets broken down it turns into this) and this can worry doctors if they don’t know why!

When? Whenever you like. Consistency is more important than timing. Take it daily at a time that suits you. There is a small amount of evidence to indicate that post-workout might help strength gains slightly, but for the overall health benefits of creatine it’s not important. The one aspect of timing that is still unclear is if it should be taken with caffeine or not, most likely it's fine with coffee or non-ergogenic doses of caffeine. My view on this is: if you can, then separate out your creatine intake from your caffeine intake, but if this is impractical then don’t worry about it. More studies are needed

Side Effects

The main reported negative side effect is stomach discomfort. Drink LOTS of water when you take your serving of creatine, and have it with food if that helps. Avoid the ‘loading’ phase of creatine and err on the side of smaller doses (3g), make sure this is well dissolved in water. Take it separately from caffeine as this may cause stomach upset too. You can also dissolve it in warm water or a warm drink! Just don't leave it sitting in warm liquid for too long as it will degrade

The second side effect which is more of a neural side effect is water weight. You gain weight - NOT fat. If you are worried about the scale going up - don’t be! Understand that this is just water, and if you stop supplementing with creatine then this water will be excreted. 

A lot more detail is in the post but to simplify: 

Who: Everyone can benefit from the older generations to those pregnant. 

When: Creatine monohydrate: 20g per day for the first week, this is called a ‘loading phase’. You can divide this out across the day. After the first week, 3-5g daily

When: Take it daily at a time that suits you. There is a small amount of evidence to indicate that post-workout might help strength gains slightly, but for the overall health benefits of creatine it’s not important.

Side effects: The main reported negative side effect is stomach discomfort. Drink LOTS of water when you take your serving of creatine, and have it with food if that helps.