Creatine Supplements

Creatine has become the standard supplement for those who wish to gain muscle mass and strength, but what about its effects on those trying to burn fat? This article explores the uses, pros and cons of this ever more popular supplement.

Many athletes use it: approximately 25% of professional baseball players and up to 50% of professional football players consume creatine. A survey of high-school athletes found creatine commonly used by football players, hockey players, wrestlers and gymnasts.

In 1998, the creatine market in the U.S. was estimated at $200 million – today, sales may be double that. Most athletic associations do not ban it since it occurs naturally in the body making it almost impossible to detect supplementation. These organizations include the International Olympic Committee, International Amateur Athletic Federation, and National Collegiate Athletic Association.

If you’ve haven’t heard of creatine, it’s a naturally occurring compound made by the liver and kidneys from these amino acids: glycine, arginine, and methionine. Most of the creatine found in the body is stored in the muscles (95%).

Once it reaches the muscles, it is converted into phosphocreatine, which is a high-powered metabolite used to regenerate the muscles’ ultimate energy source: ATP or adenosine triphosphate.

You can also get additional creatine from natural sources. Many foods, especially herring, salmon, tuna, and beef contain some creatine. This may be one reason why vegetarians have less muscle mass than those who eat meat.

Many studies – including highly accurate double blind studies – have shown performance improvements and strength gains for power athletes. In other words, those who require a maximum effort for a very short period of time: power lifters, football players and body builders.

Creatine has been said to increase energy levels resulting in increased strength and faster recovery rates. Another claimed - but as yet unproven - benefit attributed to creatine was discovered as well: creatine accelerates fat loss while building lean body mass. Scientists are not sure why this happens and they found results to be variable depending on the person tested. It may be due to the fact that increased muscle mass also increases the body’s daily metabolic rate – this, in turn, burns more calories throughout the day even when at rest.

Tests involving endurance sports like running and cycling have shown no improvement and even lowered performance in some cases. This was believed to be caused by the extra muscle weight; this extra weight just slowed them down.

How does it work? Muscle cells generate mechanical work from an energy releasing chemical reaction - ATP is split into ADP (adenosine diphosphate) and phosphate. ATP is used by muscle cells very quickly and the supply is extremely limited - usually only enough for a few seconds of high intensity work. When the ATP is depleted, work stops.

In order to keep working, the body has several ways to convert ADP back to ATP. The first and quickest method is to take the phosphate group off of phosphocreatine and connect it to ADP. This yields ATP that is immediately available for muscular work. A byproduct is creatine. The body stores enough phosphocreatine to keep ATP levels high for several more seconds.

This allows for all-out work to jump from 2-3 seconds to almost 10 seconds. The body then recharges creatine back to phosphocreatine, but this takes time - about 30 - 60 seconds. This ATP + creatine system makes up the fastest component of the anaerobic system and is the most used by power athletes.

With this in mind, the idea was to increase the levels of creatine in the muscles to provide more energy for that second 3 to 10 second period – and it seems to work. This extra energy gives the practitioner of resistance exercises enough to get a few more reps out of a set – that’s enough to make additional strength gains and increase muscle mass.

How is it used? The most accepted method is to start with a loading phase of 4 to 7 days. Basically, it involves saturating your muscles with creatine. During the first four days to a week, users take 20 to 30 grams per day mixed with non-acidic juice – like grape juice - or water. After this loading period, users switch to a regular intake of between five to fifteen grams per day to maintain muscle saturation.

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