Creatine, good or bad idea?

thehamo

Hi folks, just loooking for some opinions.

Being a person who is quite into excercise, some cardio and majority weights, I am considering the virtues of taking creatine.

For a long time i have been dead set against it, but i have been doing alot of reading up in articles, mags etc and every nutrition program mentions the use of creatine.

I do regularly use weights and i have a good knowledge of weights programs etc but I am looking to become more defined and a bit bigger. This is someting i found hard to do on a simple high protein diet.

Does anybody think creatine is worth taking?, is there any side effects? Will it make that much of a difference?

All opinions greatly appreciated!

Dragan

I suggest you post up your full diet and activity details before we look at supplements to be honest.

rubadub

One question I have about creatine is hydration. I have heard it can cause ~7lb to be gained in wieght due to water in the muscles. Now some have said you should drink more water to combat this. But once the muscles have the 7lb of water in them do you have to keep drinking more than usual? I would have thought it is full like a tank, fill it once and that is it, from then on you only have to replace the usual amount you use up.

I thought an advantage might be that it would give your other organs more water to draw from. So say if you were on creatine and went out drinking would you be less dehydrated/hungover in the morning, since your dehydrated brain could draw water from the muscle?

pwd

I've found alcohol effects me less if using creatine alright.
wonder how much of its popularity can be attributed to its name.

Hanley

It's certainly not gonna kill ya. But it's probably not gonna help that much either.

Patto

I started using creatine again last September, I have come off it again since late November. I have never been sure of the pros and cons of creatine and I have certainly never bought all the hype. This time I took a lot of measurements and watched all my stats very closely. I'm still unsure of many things but here are some of my obeservations.

Creatine seems to be very subjective to the idvividual, it seems to have a more profound affect on some and very little on otheres.

The most profound affect of creatine is the immediate weight gain in the form of additional water stored in the muscles. I always gain 5-7lb within 2 week of taking creatine. In this respect creatine has a profound affect on me. It takes about 8 weeks to loose this weight when you stop taking creatine and I don't loose anything for the first 3 weeks. So creatine once saturted remains so for 21 days (for me), I've read this before and it apprears to be true. I have found that no matter what I do I cannot get at this creatine weight, I don't think you can dehydrate it out of your muscles quicker.

After week 2 I was not all of a sudden stronger. I did make good gains in the following weeks and I noticed that I was able to lift heavy weights for more sets. I noticed a good recovery between boughts of excersise. My gains were most noticable on the bench press, leg curls (hamstrings), dips and shoulder presses. I made only small gains on my squats and my chinups disimproved. I also found that I could move between excersises quicker and I Improved a lot on circuit type training (cross fit stuff etc). I did not notice any improvement in recovery between training days, if anything it disimproved due to the increased volume of training.

I am now back to my regualr baseline. My chinups are back up, my squat gains have continued as normal. My bench press 1RM is still the same but my gains are a slower. I'm not able to lift the same weighst for the number of sets I used to though. For example, I was able to lift 32KGs per hand DB bench press for 5 sets of 5, I can only lift that weight for 3 sets now. And even though I don't look as big or strong I am much happier overall.

I'm the same weight and Body fat as I was before starting taking the creatine (give or take maybe 1lb) so I haven't net gained any huge amount of muscle. I have made decent strength gains however.

The additional weight disimproves chinups, vertical jumps and my speed. I am a quicker sprinter without creatine, which was a surprise to me. I wouldn't take creatine if my main goal was to be a better football player, be is soccer or GAA, maybe I would for rugby. I certainly wouldn't take it if I was doing any sort of track athletics be it sprinting, middle or long distance.

Creatine does blow you up, it makes you look strong, I found that I added 2" to my thighs and my back looked much bigger. I don't have big arms (14.5") so I only added aout 1/8" on my arms. If I was a powerlifter or a bodybuilder I would use creatine.

I have to add that it is very difficult to directly link cause and effect when it comes to taking creatine over a 4-6 month period. There are so many other factors at play it is very difficult to attribute any affect solely to the use of creatine. I would have to repeat this experiment 4 or 5 time and look at common trends to get a much better idea. It would be interesting to see what others have noticed.

Patto

Sorry, forgot to say, I found that there are no side affects if you take creatine in a sensible manner. Don't go mad in the loading phase (the first two weeks) and you only need 5g a day (or less) afterwads for maintanance.

teflon

Hi guys. Sorry to jump on this thread but I have a question about creatine. I have been going to the gym for years (min 3 times a week and have made the usual gains/losses) I changed gyms last Thursday and on Friday I decided to use cardio aswell as the weights to lose some of the poundage gained over Xmas. My starting weight was 14stone 8 3/4 and that was on Friday (Im 6ft 4 1/2 inches tall). I went everyday since then and did my usual routine but did 20 mins of fast running and 15 mins of cross trainer and didnt touch a drop of alcohol or crappy food. On Tuesday I weighed in at 14stone 6 so I was happy enough with the loss.

Here is the thing, on Sunday/Monday I started taking creatine tabs (3 before exercise and 3 after) and when I weighed myself last night I was 14stone 10 1/2 which I cant understand. I couldt have put on weight since Tuesday could I or would it be the creatine.....? Ive only been on it since Sunday/ Monday.

Patto

Yeah, a lot of it probably is the creatine. It is amazing that 20g a day of creatine x14-21 days can blow up your muscles with so much water.

teflon

Patto wrote: »

Yeah, a lot of it probably is the creatine. It is amazing that 20g a day of creatine x14-21 days can blow up your muscles with so much water.

Yeah but in 4-5 days over a 4 pound increase?

Baldie

Patto. Your post made very interesting reading. Good job. I have recently gone back trainng after a rest of about a year. I have a protein shake after training, and again the following morning. I am looking at taking creatine as well.

I used to take the powderd form, but I have heard of a liquid form as well which you take with a dropper under the tongue. Have you been taking the powder or liquid form?

Has anyone ever taken the liquid form, and is it any better?

TerrorFirmer

Out of interest, does creatine then give the muscles a bulky look in an individual who didn't even work out?

Hail 2 Da Chimp

rubadub wrote: »

I thought an advantage might be that it would give your other organs more water to draw from. So say if you were on creatine and went out drinking would you be less dehydrated/hungover in the morning, since your dehydrated brain could draw water from the muscle?

I too am now thinking of taking Creatine, for this reason alone

Patto

Baldie wrote: »

Patto. Your post made very interesting reading. Good job. I have recently gone back trainng after a rest of about a year. I have a protein shake after training, and again the following morning. I am looking at taking creatine as well.

I used to take the powderd form, but I have heard of a liquid form as well which you take with a dropper under the tongue. Have you been taking the powder or liquid form?

Has anyone ever taken the liquid form, and is it any better?

I respond to creatine mono, in the powder form. This is the form of creatine most studied and proven effective. Unless you are a non responder to creatine mono I don't see any point experimenting with any of the other forms of creatine.

And yes (to the question from TerrorFirmer), if you are a responder your muscles will look bigger, even if you don't work out and even if your diet is crap, as after about 2 weeks of loading, the creatine and a heap of water will saturate in your muscles.

WHIP IT!

Would it be right to conclude so, that creatine gives you SIZE but not necessarily MUSCLE or STRENGTH?

If you trained using creatine - you would get bigger than you would have gotten without it, but you won't get any stronger than you otherwise would have if you trained creatine-free?

Hanley

WHIP IT! wrote: »

Would it be right to conclude so, that creatine gives you SIZE but not necessarily MUSCLE or STRENGTH?

If you trained using creatine - you would get bigger than you would have gotten without it, but you won't get any stronger than you otherwise would have if you trained creatine-free?

No... since creatine increases your energy stores it allows you to train harder and for longer. This is only a marginal effect, we're talking a couple of extra reps or a set more BUT this should help in increasing strength.

Also, the extra padding and bulk created by the extra size will help leverages too which SHOULD allow you to lift more weight.

WHIP IT!

Hanley wrote: »

No... since creatine increases your energy stores it allows you to train harder and for longer. This is only a marginal effect, we're talking a couple of extra reps or a set more BUT this should help in increasing strength.

Also, the extra padding and bulk created by the extra size will help leverages too which SHOULD allow you to lift more weight.

Ah, of course... Thanks H...