With all of these mores, it’s hard not to think of creatine as a PED. It’s gotta be cheating in sports…right?

Well actually, no.

Creatine is completely legal and used by everyone in every sport.

But why?

Part of the reason is that everyone produces creatine naturally. It’s found in a lot of the foods that we eat, so it would be impossible to regulate the amount of it in athletes’ bodies.

It’s also the most studied supplement in the world and has very few (if any) negative effects.

There are a bunch other reasons for keeping creatine legal, but I won’t go into that here.

The goal of this article is to explain the benefits of creatine for you as an active person, whether you’re a crossfitter, bodybuilder, football player, or just your average gym-goer.

Tl;dr: the thing creatine does best is increase energy production in cells.

If you only take one thing away from this article, let it be that. Creatine = more energy = more performance.

But if you wanna get into the nerd stuff keep reading.

If you took Biology 101 in school, you might remember learning about Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP).

ATP is the energy our muscles use when we exercise.

The more intense or explosive the workout is, the faster we drain our ATP stores. Meaning slowing down in your workout or being able to do less reps as time goes on.

Here’s where creatine comes in.

When ATP is used as energy, it loses a phosphate (Tri = 3) and becomes Adenosine Diphosphate (Di = 2) or ADP.

3 - 1 = 2.

Creatine helps add a phosphate back to ADP to recycle it into ATP.

2 + 1 = 3.

More ATP = more energy.

I feel you. Science is great and all, but what does this actually do for you in the gym?

Lots. At least according to these scientists.

One study showed an 8% increase in strength gain (20% vs. 12%) against a placebo group, and a 14% increase in weightlifting performance (26% vs. 12%).

Another study showed up to a 15% increase in maximal strength and up to a 15% increase in high-intensity exercise.

Another one showed a significant increase in 6-second sprint performance in college football players.

I can keep going but you get the gist of it.

Supplementing with creatine will make you stronger, faster, improve your endurance, and just maybe make you the next Usain Bolt.

I know I know, we all want to look like Noah Olsen or Katrin Davidsdottir. How in the world did they get so jacked?

Fact: Their muscles definitely aren’t short on creatine.

95% of the creatine in your body is stored in your muscles. The other 5% is stored in your brain and other organs.

One study showed an increase of 2kg or 4.4lbs of muscle mass in a creatine group vs. a placebo group over a 6 week period.

If that sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is…kinda.

Almost all of that new muscle mass is actually water weight. Creatine causes your muscle cells to retain more water. (Fun fact: your muscles are 70% water)

So in the short-term, that extra lean muscle isn’t really…real.

But in the long-term, it doesn’t matter.

That extra water-filled muscle will help you train heavier, longer, and ultimately that means you’ll build muscle faster. (Plus you’ll look more jacked, who doesn’t want that?)

In addition to that, creatine has been shown to boost the formation of proteins that create new muscle fibers and increase levels of IGF-1 (a hormone that stimulates muscle growth).

Besides the benefits you get in the gym, there are a ton of other benefits you can get from creatine.

It can help treat neurological diseases like:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• Ischemic stroke
• Epilepsy
• Brain and spinal cord injuries
• ALS

It can help lower blood sugar levels.

It can help with brain function, memory, and recall ability. (Your brain uses ATP when you think hard).

A better question would be, what can’t creatine do??

There are two.

The first one is that creatine only helps performance in strength, speed, and high intensity training.

So if you’re a pure endurance athlete and don’t do any of the above, sorry. Creatine isn’t going to help you…at least not in training. You’ll still get all the other benefits though.

That’s because low-intensity exercise doesn’t benefit from faster-than-normal ATP regeneration.

The second catch is that some people experience digestive issues (ie. diarrhea and bloating) when they take creatine.

For most people, this is usually the result of doing a “creatine loading phase”.

See, if you want to maximize your creatine stores as fast as possible, the recommended protocol is to do a loading phase, where you take in 20g of creatine every day for 5-7 days.

If you want to avoid the extra toilet visits, you can just take the normal dose of  3-5g of creatine a day. After a few weeks, you’ll have just as much creatine stored as if you did a loading phase. It won’t make a difference.

Other than the diarrhea and bloating mentioned above, it doesn’t seem like it.

Creatine has been studied for more than 200 years and it’s universally regarded as one of the safest supplements available.

Long term clinical trials have shown no negative side effects in healthy individuals.

Easy!

Unless you have a reason to rush into maximum creatine muscle saturation (ie. some sort of upcoming competition), skip the loading phase.

Just take 3-5g of creatine a day and watch the gains come in.

You’ll see people on the internet argue over the tiniest details like whether to take it pre-workout, post-workout, or whether to break up the dose over the course of the day.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter.

Unless you do a loading phase, it takes about a month to reach creatine saturation. The time of day that you take your dose isn’t going to make much of a difference.

The only exception to this is if you’re experiencing digestive issues. In that case, breaking up your daily dose into smaller doses will probably help.

You can mix it with your protein shake, a glass of orange juice, or even mix it with a shot of tequila (although I wouldn’t recommend it).

Personally, I mix it in with a small glass of water and chug it down. It tastes like…water.

Creatine monohydrate.

It’s the only form of creatine that’s been studied to hell and back.

It’s the cheapest form available and it works without question.

Any other form of creatine is most likely just a marketing gimmick.