Our creatine buyer’s guide teaches you about what creatine is, what it does and the different types available so you can make an informed decision about what type you should use.
What is creatine?
Creatine is made up of the amino acids methionine, arginine and glycine. Almost all creatine is stored in your muscles with the average 70kg male storing 120g-140g and 2g/day is excreted in urine. Creatine can be ingested from dietary sources such as fish and meat or produced in your body by the liver. A well balanced diet only contains 1g/day so creatine supplementation is essential to gain the additional amount needed for improved performance.
Creatine is absorbed into the digestive tract after ingestion or released from the liver and enters the blood stream. The blood delivers creatine to the muscle for absorption where 40% is stored in free form and 60% as phosphocreatine (PC). PC provides energy for short muscular contractions so the aim of supplementing with creatine is to increase storage.
Creatine effects on performance:
Creatine allows you to maintain high intensity exercise for longer leading to faster gains over training alone. If your exercise involves repeated, short bursts of high intensity exercise supplementing with creatine should improve your performance. Research consistently shows improvements in:
- Lean body mass
- Muscle hypertrophy (growth)
- Strength
- 1 RM MAX (lifting weight for 1 rep)
- Power output
- Sprint time
- Agility
- Maximal power
- Repeated sprints
Types of creatine available:
Creatine Monohydrate is the most popular way of take creatine. Creatine monohydrate powders are generally 99.9% pure creatine and can be mixed with other bodybuilding supplements easily. To enhance the update of creatine monohydrate it can be mixed with simple carbohydrate supplements like dextrose or with grape juice.
Creatine Ethyl Ester (CEE) is creatine monohydrate with an ester attached. Esters are organic compounds that are formed by esterification - the reaction of carboxylic acid and alcohols. These compounds increase the absorption rate of creatine. There have been limited studies into creatine monohydrate vs. creatine ethyl ester. Users of CEE have reported positive effects.
Ways to take creatine:
Creatine can be taking in powder, liquid or capsule form. Powder is the most common method used, and has the best absorption rate. It’s a good idea to stay away from creatine liquids as studies have shown creatine in liquid form to be much less effective.
To optimize creatine uptake you should take creatine with simple carbohydrates. Grape juice or dextrose is recommended. The simple sugars cause an insulin spike with helps move creatine to muscle tissue. You should not take creatine with acidic fruit juices like apple or orange juice. The acid in these juices has a counter productive effect.
So creatine products now come with simple carbohydrates (and some other vitamins and minerals) mixed in. These products are generally more expensive, but have been proven to be very effective. One example is Muscle Tech’s Cell-Tech. This was the first product to come out with simple carbohydrates and alpha lipoic acid and is still one of the market leaders.
Recommendations:
For beginners, I recommend you try a basic creatine monohydrate powder. Load creatine by taking 20g a day for 5-7 days, then drop those dose off to 5-7g a day. Mix creatine with your post workout shake, which if you’ve been reading on this site, should contain whey protein and 50-70g of dextrose.
Creatine ethyl ester has got excellent reviews across the board. Little study has been done into the positive effects over creatine monohydrate, so it would be worth trying. Generally stay away from creatine liquids and pills. Creatine is absorbed better as a powder.
Finally, as I mentioned above the new creatine formulas also work really well. They are a bit more expensive, but worth it in my opinion.
Good luck with your training and supplementation with creatine. It’s a solid supplement and should bring you solid results.
