Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine monohydrate is the most effective and scientifically proven bodybuilding supplement available. Hundreds of studies have been conducted on creatine monohydrate and they all conclude that creatine monohydrate improves explosive power, strength, muscle size and increases weight.

What Is Creatine Monohydrate?

Creatine monohydrate is the most effective and popular supplement used by athletes to increase lean muscle mass, strength and energy. The human body naturally makes creatine to supply energy to the muscles. Creatine is made in the liver, pancreas and kidneys and is transported to the body’s muscles through the bloodstream. Once it reaches the muscles, it is converted into phosphocreatine (creatine phosphate). This high-powered metabolite is used to regenerate the muscles’ ultimate energy source, ATP (adenosine triphosphate).

Creatine is 100% natural and is found in small amounts in some foods. Some foods that contain creatine are red meat, salmon, herring and tuna. The amount of creatine in these foods is minimal, and most (if not all) is lost when the food is cooked.

The best source of creatine monohydrate is creatine powders. These supplements are 99.9% pure creatine and only a small daily dose is required to raise the creatine levels in muscle tissue.

How Does Creatine Monohydrate Work?

As mentioned above, when creatine monohydrate is taken it travels to the muscle cells via the bloodstream. It is then converted to creatine phosphate. Creatine phosphate’s role is to replenish the body’s reserves of ATP, the muscles’ ultimate energy source for short, explosive bursts of energy.

The moment you pick the weight up of the rack, your body calls on its ATP stores to power the muscles. After 5-10 seconds, the energy from ATP has been used. Your body then turns to creatine phosphate, which is quickly converted to ATP and used as energy. This process only takes a fraction of a second.

If the body does not have an adequate amount of creatine phosphate available, it turns to glycogen. The problem with glycogen is, it takes much longer to be converted into ATP (around 20 seconds).

So if the muscles are completely saturated with creatine through supplementation with creatine monohydrate, more creatine phosphate will be available resulting in more energy, increased weight and raps, and increased lean muscle growth.

Who Can Benefit From Taking Creatine Supplements?

Creatine is the most widely used supplement by athletes, and first started to be widely used to enhance performance in 1992. In fact, three out of four Olympic gold medalists in the 1996 summer Olympic games used creatine!

Bodybuilders get the most benefit out of using creatine monohydrate. The increased energy that creatine provides means bodybuilders have more explosive energy when training, which means pushing out more reps, which leads to increased lean muscle growth.

Almost anyone who is active can benefit from creatine monohydrate. Women looking to increase muscle tone, sprinters, footballers, wrestlers – anyone can benefit from the incredible results that creatine monohydrate can provide.

Creatine also has an almost instant effect on weight gain. After the first 2 weeks of taking creatine and weight training, it’s not uncommon to gain 1-3 pounds in bodyweight! This is due to increased water retention in the muscles caused by raised creatine levels through supplementation.

What Are The Recommended Creatine Monohydrate Dosages?

Excellent results have observed when taking creatine monohydrate in two ways.

• Creatine loading:
  Creatine loading works saturating the muscles with creatine in the first 5-7 days and then maintaining the creatine levels in the following weeks. So in the first 5-7 days, 20g of creatine monohydrate is taken (4 x 5g servings) with a non-acidic fruit juice or dextrose. The dosage is then reduced to 5-10g per day taken post workout and before bed.
• Gradual approach:
  The gradual approach skips the loading phase and moves straight on to taking 5-10g per day.

Both of these methods have been proven to be effective, so it’s down to personal preference.

A simple carbohydrate taken with creatine monohydrate is known to greatly enhance the absorption of creatine. According to Green et al. (American Journal of Physiology), ingesting a carbohydrate solution (sugars) with creatine promotes a 60 percent greater increase in total creatine concentrations in the muscle, compared with taking creatine alone. ^[1] So far, there are no peer reviewed journal articles which disagree with Green’s findings.

Does Creatine Monohydrate Have Any Side Effects?

No side effects from supplementing with creatine monohydrate have been recorded in any research. Creatine is totally safe, and effective. Like any supplements, it’s not recommended to over-supplement with creatine monohydrate. Once your muscles are saturated with creatine, you only need to take 5-10g per day. Any more than that will be excreted.

How To Optimize The Uptake Of Creatine

You can increase the update of creatine by creating an insulin spike. Insulin is an extremely anabolic hormone and can transport nutrients throughout the body quickly and effectively. The easiest way to create an insulin spike is by using creatine products that are mixed with simple carbohydrates like Nutrex Volu-Gro and Gaspari SizeOn. Or, another method is mixing your creatine monohydrate supplement with dextrose. You need to take about 70g of dextrose to get a good insulin spike.