14 Jun 2019
Creatine helps your muscles to produce energy and is conveniently located in muscle cells to do exactly that. In other words, your body produces creatine naturally. If you can find a way to create more creatine than your body can make on its own, your muscle energy will be the winner.
Hence creatine supplements.
Quite simply, creatine helps to increase the phosphocreatine (creatine phosphate) stores in muscles, and the excess is used to produce the ATP energy you need for intense exercise.
A creatine-loaded workout will:
Increase your energy levels for a longer, more intense workout
Help muscles repair faster
Assist muscle growth
Increase anabolic hormones
Improve water retention
Enhance protein synthesis
Reduce myostatin which inhibits muscle growth.
Creatine is an excellent supplement pre-workout and post-workout for increasing muscle mass and muscle strength. It’s a branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) supplement, which means it can help boost muscle growth, reverse weight gain and reduce fatigue.
Surprise, surprise; creatine isn’t just a muscle food. Studies show it can also be great for brain health. Creatine has been shown to have positive effects on general brain function and memory. If that’s not enough, this wonder supplement can help with:
Motor neuron disease
Epilepsy
Parkinson’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease
Huntington’s disease
Ischemic stroke
Brain injuries
Spinal cord injuries.
That’s a long question, and here’s the short answer: not long at all if you do what’s called a creatine loading phase. A creatine loading phase is a bit like bingeing on the first three seasons of Game of Thrones to get up to speed with what everyone else has been talking about. But in this case, you’re loading – saturating actually – your muscles and bingeing on creatine phosphate.
The result is a massive reservoir of muscle-building energy, and there’s a pretty simple formula to get your body primed for creatine-enhanced growth.
When you’re starting out on your creatine journey, most trainers recommend 20 grams every day for up to 7 days.
From there, you can drop it back to about 4 grams per day to maintain high levels in your muscles, but you need to be taking creatine supplements even on rest days.
Why? Because it helps with muscle recovery as well.
That’s always a good idea before you start gulping down any new supplement, especially if you’re new to working out.
That said, creatine has been researched with more vigour than most supplements, and even four-year-long studies have failed to find a single side effect.
If you’d like to become an expert on all things fitness – including creatine – now is a great time to start a nationally recognised course right HERE.
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