Creatine: Uses, Benefits and Health Risks

How Does Creatine Monohydrate Improve Performance and Atrophy?

Creatine monohydrate is one of the most popular types of these supplements with proven health benefits.

Creatine monohydrate is just creatine with a single molecule of water attached, and it usually is anywhere from 88-90% creatine by weight.

Creatine is a fuel source, and that’s how it can improve performance and reduce atrophy.

Creatine that’s phosphate bonded is the first choice of energy your body is going to seek out when you’re lifting weights or doing other anaerobic activities.

When your body tries to create the compound that powers quick contractions of your muscles, which is ATP, it borrows a phosphate molecule from phosphocreatine. Then, it combines it with ADP, another compound. Once a muscle has mostly used up its phosphocreatine stores, it will produce ATP from other sources, like fats or glucose.

Supplementing with creatine will increase your stores and the available phosphocreatine in your body. That will mean faster ATP formation. The more phosphocreatine you have, the more work you can do before you experience fatigue.

Another function of creatine is to draw water into your muscle cells so they’re more hydrated. When your muscle cells are hydrated, it increases your protein synthesis.

There are several ways creatine monohydrate has potential benefits, including allowing you to lift more weight and generate more mechanical tension. Mechanical tension is a primary driver of muscle growth and development.

Is It Safe?

One of the significant concerns you may have about taking a creatine supplement is the potential side effects.

The good news is that creatine is one of the safest and most thoroughly studied supplements. It’s considered a “likely safe” supplement at recommended, moderate doses, and at higher doses, it’s characterized as “possibly safe.”

• If you have kidney disease, you might want to avoid taking creatine. There’s some concern that creatine could impact kidney function, but this isn’t proven or backed up with any research, although it’s best to use caution.
• You should also be cautious about using creatine if you have diabetes or take any supplements for high blood pressure.
• If you’re pregnant, you should likely avoid creatine because the safety isn’t confirmed, nor is it confirmed safe during breastfeeding.
• There’s another issue you should consider before taking creatine—it can cause weight gain. This effect will primarily be water weight, which can be good if you want to add bulk or muscle mass. Of course, if your goal is to get leaner, or you’re an athlete, you may want to avoid creatine because of the potential for weight gain.
• Creatine supplements are most physically beneficial if you lift heavy weights or do sprints or similar high-intensity interval exercises.
• If you take diuretics, be cautious with creatine because it can affect water levels in your body and lead to dehydration.

The takeaway is that while creatine is mostly safe, it’s not for everyone. Creatine supplementation safety is similar to taking any other unregulated supplement.

Think carefully before using it if you take any medications, are pregnant, or have underlying health conditions. You also should make sure that if you take it, you’re balancing out your use with high-intensity exercise to prevent water weight gain. While water weight gain would be temporary from a supplement, it may not be ideal for you.

Some people worry about hair loss associated with creatine supplements, but no research backs that claim up. 

Will Taking Creatine Before a Workout Give Me Energy?

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to take creatine before a workout. Creatine doesn’t necessarily give you energy. Instead, it can improve your power output, so you can do more reps before you reach failure and potentially improve your gains.

Whether or not you take it before or after your workout doesn’t necessarily matter, with one exception.

If you have caffeine before a workout, you might want to avoid taking creatine simultaneously. Caffeine with creatine can reduce its effects.

In that scenario, you could take caffeine before your workout for energy and creatine afterward to enhance your glycogen replenishment and maximize both benefits.

When Is the Best Time to Take Creatine?

As mentioned above, there isn’t a best time to take creatine. It’s not stimulating, so creatine supplementation can be done anytime that works best for you.

There is some research to show that creatine uptake is improved when it’s consumed with protein and carbohydrates.

Are  Supplements Recommended for Athletes?

Creatine isn’t a prohibited substance, and it may have some effects on performance, so it’s possible that an athlete could benefit from creatine supplementation.

Do You Need to Load?

Many people think you need to load creatine for it to be effective. If you load creatine at high doses for four or five days, you’ll get more rapid saturation in your muscle, improving your strength and performance faster.

Some loading protocols will last as long as seven days, and you take 20-25 grams. Then once you’re caught up, you’d drop down to a more “normal” dose of creatine.

The evidence doesn’t support the need for creatine load for positive long-term effects unless you already have very low baseline levels.

If you’ve been using less than five grams a day, you might want to do a loading phase which could help you see faster improvements in your upper body strength.

Creatine Loading and Bloating

A concern people often have about taking creatine is its potential to cause bloating. You wouldn’t typically experience bloating unless you were creatine-loading.

The creatine loading phase refers to a scenario where you take 20 to 25 grams of creatine daily for anywhere from five to seven days in a row. Then, following the loading phase, you would do a maintenance phase of 3 to 5 grams per pound of body weight. The goal of loading is to bring up your muscle stores to an optimal level and then keep them there.

In the loading phase, you’ll likely see weight gain and bloating from creatine. If you’re taking less than the doses above, that’s probably not a concern.

The reason for bloating and weight gain during creatine loading is water retention because your muscles are taking more of it in. 

Again, this is a short-term issue and should be resolved after creatine loading.

You can skip the bloating and weight gain by not doing the loading phase and only following the maintenance phase. Certain creatine supplements give benefits like muscle strength without bloating or potential mild adverse effects. 

The loading period rapidly increases your creatine levels to saturate your muscles with the creatine to see the benefits sooner.

What Happens If You Take Too Much?

While creatine is widely studied and considered one of the safest supplements, you can overdo it.

One of the most common side effects of too much creatine is bloating, and that’s because it leads to increased water intake into your muscles.

You could experience general stomach upset as well, as belching and diarrhea.

You only need to take enough creatine to saturate your muscle stores. If you’re going beyond the recommended dosage, you’ll excrete the excess because your body can only store so much, meaning more isn’t always better.

How Do You Choose the Best Supplement?

If you’ve answered your original question of whether or not you should take creatine and decided the answer is yes, it can be a little overwhelming. Because of how popular these supplements are and how long they’ve been studied, there are a lot of options for creatine products available. 

The following are tips for choosing the best creatine supplement and what to know as you compare.