Creatine is perhaps the second most popular supplement for gym goers (after protein shakes) and is used by many top athletes. Unlike protein shakes however, creatine doesn’t focus on building muscle directly but rather on giving us enough energy to perform better in the gym and grow more muscle that way.

Creatine works by converting the adenosine monophosphate and adenosine diphosphate in your muscles back into adensosine triphosphate. In English, this means it recycles the muscles’ energy main energy source, by recombining phosphates to form ATP – the universal energy source of life. These are combined using powerful energy bonds that when broken supply the muscle with bursts of energy for explosive movements such as lifting a weight. Unfortunately our muscle tissue can only store enough ATP for about three seconds of use, which is why it uses creatine to reuse this. This is known as the ‘phophogen system’.

Of course the body’s creatine supply is limited too, and normally we only have enough for an additional ten seconds or so worth of energy. The idea of supplementing creatine then is to increase this supply and so give your muscles slightly more energy to work with, in turn allowing you to go for longer at the gym and squeeze out an extra repetition or two.

An added bonus of supplementing with creatine is that by storing extra creatine your muscles also store extra water; resulting in them swelling slightly and becoming harder. This doesn’t add to your strength in anyway but is a fairly desirable side effect for anyone who wants to beef up and it’s not unusual to gain about half an inch on your biceps simply from taking creatine.

Creatine is a product that some advise you use with ‘loading’, meaning that you take larger amounts for the first five days or so of use. The idea of this is to ‘flood’ the body with more creatine than it can use, giving it its own store to draw from – after which it should only be necessary to use top up with a couple of spoonfuls a day. While some advocate loading however, others claim that is a waste of money and/or a marketing strategy on the part of manufacturers hoping to make it sound more ‘steroid-like’.

For extra effects you can also ‘stack’ creatine with lipoic acid and/or pyruvate and/or vanadyl sulphate (with stacking meaning you take them alongside the main supplement). Lipoic acid is great when taken with creatine as it has been shown to increase the uptake of glucose into skeletal muscle (glucose which contains ATP). Pyruvate meanwhile also increases the ATP in your muscles by enhancing the transport of glucose and protein. Finally vanadyl increases the amount of glucose the muscles can store. As you can imagine then, these three combined with creatine create a potent blend for supplying the muscles with ATP and glycogen.

Creatine is also a worthwhile product when taken on its own however, and while not completely essential it has enjoyed a lot of popularity for its positive impact on muscle energy.

Mack LeMouse

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