Creatine, a natural substance, is often taken as a supplement to improve muscle strength and performance. It works primarily by increasing phosphocreatine stores in the body.
It’s available as creatine powder, gel cap, or tablet. It’s been shown to increase work done during short bursts, intense, maximal-effort exercises. It may also improve recovery from injury or exercise.
Benefits
Creatine, a natural substance found in muscles, improves performance and strength. It helps athletes achieve bursts of power, especially during short bouts of high-intensity activity like weight lifting or sprinting. It’s popular among bodybuilders, athletes and other sportsmen. It is also believed to help preserve muscle mass and improve exercise performance as we get older.
Supplementing with creatine increases your muscles’ stores of phosphocreatine, which is needed to produce the energy required for heavy lifting and high-intensity exercise. It can also boost your body’s capacity for work by lowering the amount of ATP that breaks down during exercise, so you can do more reps or go longer on your next set.
Research shows that taking creatine and doing resistance training 2-3 times per week can help you gain more muscle than resistance training alone. It works by increasing osmotic stress in your muscles, which causes the tissues to swell and lead to new muscle growth.
Other research suggests that the creatine can help you recover more quickly from exercise by healing tiny tears within your muscles. It may also slow sarcopenia – a natural loss of muscle function and strength that occurs with age. Several studies suggest that creatine could help improve strength, and speed up recovery in those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Dosage
It is an organic compound primarily found in the muscles and skeletal system of vertebrates. It helps to recycle adenosinetriphosphate (ATP), the energy source for muscular contractions. It also helps to increase the number of repetitions and exercise volume that can be performed during an activity. This can result in muscle hypertrophy and improved performance over the course a training session. Creatine may also reduce the breakdown and levels of myostatin protein, which limits the growth of muscles.
If you’re taking creatine, you should start with a “loading phase” where you take 5 grams four times a day. This is recommended for about a seven-day period. This is intended to help your body increase its creatine stores. The International Society of Sports Nutrition suggests that you maintain your creatine level by maintaining your dose between 3 and 5 grams per day. This dosage is appropriate for most adults, but males and larger individuals might require more.
Creatine can help improve muscle mass and strength in older adults when combined with resistance training. It has also shown to slow sarcopenia (the natural loss of muscle mass that occurs with age).
Additionally, creatine has shown to preserve muscle functions and reduce the progress of a neurologic condition called spinocerebellar ATaxia Type 3 Creatine supplements may help patients with this disorder improve their muscle balance and gait by increasing the phosphocreatine level in their muscles. Additionally, they can mitigate the loss of weight in the brain associated with the condition by reducing an increase in the number astrocytes.
Research
Creatine is a form of amino acid that the body produces from glycine using the enzyme guanidinoacetic acids synthase. It is found in many food items, including meat, fish and poultry. Some people use it as a dietary supplement to increase muscle mass and strength, and to enhance athletic performance. Researchers have shown that creatine increases muscle performance in short bursts, such as sprinting and bench pressing. It has been suggested that creatine might help treat a variety of health conditions, including heart failure and aging skin.
Vegetarians are found to have lower levels of muscle creatine, and PCr, than non-vegetarians. This is due to a diet that limits the body’s ability for creatine production. The degradation of muscle creatine to creatinine is increased with increasing muscle mass and physical activity. Consuming high-protein foods such as meat can increase dietary creatine.
Studies have shown creatine supplementation to be safe and beneficial, especially when combined together with resistance training. In a double-blind study, young male resistance-trained athletes were randomly assigned to drink a placebo or creatine during a full football year. The creatine group experienced less cramping, dehydration and heat illness, muscle strains and missed practice due to injuries.
Researchers have reported that supplementing with creatine reduces blood glucose levels and HbA1c after eating a standard meal. This suggests that creatine increases the body’s sensitivity to insulin and could be useful in lowering blood glucose levels in type-2 diabetics. Studies also suggest that creatine supplementation increases GLUT-4 translocation and promotes AMPK-alpha protein content in the liver, further suggesting that creatine might be useful in managing diabetes.
The dietary supplementation of creatine can improve recovery following knee surgery, but more research is needed to determine whether it might prevent immobilization-related atrophy and enhance rehabilitation in this population. Creatine was also shown to reduce the rate of bone loss among postmenopausal woman who received resistance training for 52-weeks.