The Skinny on Creatine
Todays article is about creatine, now we've all heard of it, possibly in the locker room about how your buddy gained "10 lbs of lean mass" from creatine, or even on the news where it's been referred to as "a steroid" making the general public believe that anyone on creatine will tear down their house in a fit of rage.
But what exactly is creatine?
Creatine is an amino acid derivative that is synthesized from arginine, glycine and methionine. Creatine itself actually occurs naturally in the body, created at a rate of about 1g a day. Another source of creatine for your average person is from meat and fish, on average another 1g a day is consumed.
It Is the most researched supplement in the industry, and the general consensus is, that it works, and works well.
What exactly does creatine do?
Basically, Creatine enhances ATP energy output during anaerobic exercise via a very complicated process that we're not going to get in to today; the other major factor is that the increase of creatine inside a muscle cell also shifts the osmotic balance. You may have heard about creatine "bloating up" muscles with water, the real name for this is "water drag", in which the muscle cells drag in water to restore their osmotic balance.
This is why you hear people saying they gained "X amount of mass" whilst taking creatine, even though it no doubt does help with gaining muscle mass, the initial loading phase (Which isn't really even necessary) will see your average gym goer gain anywhere from 3-7 pounds, practically of pure water. The only real good thing about this effect is it does make the muscles look bigger.
What is the best type of creatine?
There is creatine monohydrate, ethyl ester, citrate, pyruvate, etc, etc. I have tried them all and the one I found that works best is Kre Alkalyn Creatine.
Combine is with a calorific surplus, good training program and sufficient rest for maximum growth!
Thanks for reading!
