If you’re somebody who’s been thinking about starting creatine,
but you’ve heard a lot of negative and positive reviews about it
from people online or maybe in the gym,
I’m gonna go over everything that we know
from a scientific and research standpoint
to help you understand what you’re getting yourself into
if you’re thinking about taking it over,
the pros, the cons,
the miss, and how to take it if that’s something you choose to do.
Number one,
it’s going to allow your body to be stronger in your training sessions,
meaning you’re gonna be able to do more weight or do more reps,
which, as a byproduct,
is gonna help you build more muscle at a faster pace as well.
Also evidence that it helps you recover from your training sessions,
helps improve your endurance,
as well as helps improve your cognition,
and can even have some positive effects
for people who are in a depressed state.
But there are some cons that you do wanna keep in mind.
Number one,
creatine does have the potential to increase bloating in your body.
When you take creatine, it adds more water into your muscle cells,
but some people will experience increased bloating from it.
And number two, when you have more water in your body,
that means you’re going to weigh a little bit more at your set point
than you did before. So
if it’s gonna freak you out
to weigh an additional two to three pounds
to Get all of those extra benefits,
it’s probably not something that you’re mentally ready to dive into.
Last but not least, there are non responders when it comes to creatine.
We have studies showing that some people respond really well
with the benefits that I mentioned before,
and then we have some people that don’t really respond at all
when taking creatine. Also.
Now the Miss. There’s a common misconception
that you’re going to get really bulky when you start taking creatine,
but in all reality, it’s not a steroid by any means.
At the very best, you’re probably going to notice
anywhere from a 2 to 5% increase
in the amount of progress that you’re making
than you would without it.
So it’s not gonna make you this huge bodybuilder.
Number two is that it’s bad for your kidneys.
Now if you’re somebody who has bad kidneys,
probably not the greatest idea to go throwing creatine at the moment,
but if you’re somebody with healthy kidneys,
then taking the recommended dose on a day to day basis
has not been proven to negatively affect your kidneys in any way.
Number three is that it has a negative effect on your menstrual cycle
for women. There actually is study showing that
when you’re going through your menstruation phase
during your cycle, creatine levels drop a lot.
What does help is actually supplementing with creatine
to get those levels to more stable places,
which you’ll help your body achieve a Better homeostasis
No. 4 is that you need a loading phase when you first start creatine.
Meaning you take these mega doses for the first few days
to completely fill up your creatine levels
to start getting the most benefit from it.
This isn’t the case though.
A lot of people will experience negative effects potentially
if you start just loading creatine into your system
right out of the gate.
You’d be much better off just taking a daily dose
and allowing it to slowly build.
So if you want to start taking creatine,
here is how I would suggest taking it
and how it’s taken in most studies.
Just simply start by taking 3 to 5 grams of creatine monohydrate
on a day to day basis every 24 hours.
So at the same time, every single day,
regardless if you’re training on that day or not,
continue taking it to keep your creatine levels full.
The smaller of a person that you are,
I’d recommend starting around 3 grams,
and the bigger of a person you are potentially starting around 5 grams.