HOW MUCH CREATINE? HOW MUCH CREATINE?

"How much creatine - How to take it, when to take it,

why to take it"

By: Brad Pilon, Author of Eat Stop Eat

How Much Creatine?

Brad Pilon

Copyright © 2013 by StrengthWorks International Publishing, Inc.

All rights Reserved

No portion of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or

by any means, electronic or mechanical, including fax, photocopy, recording, or

any information storage and retrieval system by anyone but the purchaser for

their own personal use. This manual may not be reproduced in any form

without the express written permission of Brad Pilon, except in the case of a

reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages for the sake of a review written for

inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or journal, and all of these situations

require the written approval of Brad Pilon prior to publication.

The information in this book is for educational purposes only. The

information in this book is based on my own personal experiences and my own

interpretation of available research. It is not medical advice and I am not a

medical doctor.

The information within this book is meant for healthy adult individuals.

You should consult with your physician to make sure it is appropriate for your

individual circumstances. Keep in mind that nutritional needs vary from person

to person, depending on age, sex, health status and total diet.

If you have any health issues or concerns please consult with your

physician. Always consult your physician before beginning or making any

changes in your diet or exercise program, for diagnosis and treatment of illness

and injuries, and for advice regarding medications.

INTRODUCTION

What exactly is ‘building muscle?’

Is it an increase in size? Weight? Both?

I wish we had all the answers to muscle, but we really don’t.

What we do know is that muscle will increase in size as a response to weight

training. However, even this is a bit of an incorrect way of looking at the

problem.

In fact, a more accurate statement would be that muscles will increase in size

as response to eating protein, thanks to the anabolic sensitizing affect of

resistance training.

Now, I won’t bore you with any more protein studies as I’m sure you’ve heard

more than enough about eating protein to build muscle, however I will say that

protein isn’t the only thing associated with muscle growth.

We know that testosterone and other anabolic hormones build muscle, but

there use is illegal without a doctor’s prescription and are generally not an

option for the average person. Therefore, what I would like to show you is some

very interesting research on the one specific dietary supplement that is legal in

most countries that can actually increase the size of your muscles - good old

creatine monohydrate – a dietary supplement that is legal for use in most

countries.

Many people think that it was the passing of the Dietary Supplement Health

and Education Act (DSHEA) back in 1994 that allowed the nutritional

supplement industry to become the juggernaut that it is today, but in my

opinion, the discovery of the muscle building effect of creatine monohydrate

played just as large a role. In fact, my opinion is that there would be no

supplement industry without creatine.

From the pioneering research conducted by Dr. Eric Hultman and Dr. Roger

Harris, to the ongoing work being conducted by Dr. Paul Greenhaff and many

others, the scientific research behind the muscle building effects of creatine is

very impressive. So impressive that I believe the effectiveness of creatine created

a belief that all supplements could work this well with no side effects and be

safe and inexpensive.

Creatine is truly the poster child for the supplement industry and how

amazingly effective a product could be. Unfortunately 16 years later it is still

one of the only supplements that can make this claim.

There are hundreds of scientific papers on creatine, and easily over a dozen

published books, and for good reason - In almost every clinical trial on creatine

I have ever reviewed, the men (and women) taking creatine always gain

impressive amounts of lean mass and they have gained strength – a lot of it.

Interestingly, these people do this without any other post-workout supplements

or changes to their normal diets. They gain weight and strength without any

extra calories or protein (creatine does not contain any useable calories). People

in creatine research trials gained muscle WITHOUT high protein diets. post-

workout protein meals, or massive amounts of calories – more proof that you

may not need these things to gain muscle size.

Now, it may seem odd that creatine could be considered a protein. Creatine is

actually a ‘tri-pepitde’ made of 3 amino acids, and that it is naturally found in

our diets in most red meats (which is the main reason why it’s considered a

supplement and not a drug).

(creatine)

Creating is formed by combining the amino acids glycine, arginine, and

methionine and is produced in physiologic amounts by the liver, kidneys, and

pancreas. So creatine is not ‘essential’ since we do have the ability to make it

within our own bodies [Balsom PD 1994].

It was largely thought that the reason helped you gain muscle was simply by

adding water weight [Hultman  E,  1996].  However, we know now this is not true,

and we know that creatine use is associated with an actual increase in muscle

fiber diameter [Volek  JS,  1999;  Tarnopolsky  MA  2001]. So the weight added by

creatine is not simply ‘bloating’ or only water (as we will discuss later) but

actual muscle mass.

The bottom line is that any supplement with a twenty-year track record of

success with little to no side effects is definitely worth investigating.

CREATINE AND MUSCLE MASS

If you measure the surrogate endpoints like amino acid flux or nitrogen

balance, creatine has no effect [Louis M, 2003]. But, when you measure the

true endpoint of increased muscle weight and muscular strength, creatine does

very well, creating clear improvements in the majority of research studies.

So while creatine may not actually ‘build new muscle’ in the classical sense, it

does increase the size and weight of muscles, and that by itself is an excellent

achievement. In fact, creatine performs so well that people in creatine research

trials typically gain much more muscle than people in research trials who take

protein after their workouts.

In general it seems that the use of creatine can add 2 to 5 pounds of weight in 4

to 28 days, and that this weight is mostly in the form of fat free mass. This

seems to be in addition to the 2 to 5 pounds we would expect from weight

training alone.

For instance, in a trial published in 2000, 23 men taking creatine gained over

3.5 pounds of lean mass over 6 weeks. The impressive part is that they only

exercised their arms during this 6 week period! That’s right, 6 weeks of only

blasting their biceps and triceps and the men in this study still gained 3.5 a

pound of lean mass! In a measure of upper arm muscle area they gained over 2

square inches of muscle size! [Becque DM, 200]

In a trial published in 2001, researchers gave creatine to a group of football

players for 9 weeks. During this time these red-shirt freshmen were weight

training 4 times per week. At the end of the 9 weeks, the creatine group gained

over 8 pounds of lean mass [Bemben MG 2001].

In another trial using creatine combined with resistance training (this time in

older men in their 70’s), after 12 weeks of resistance training and taking

creatine (no post-workout protein) the creatine group gained over 7 pounds of

lean tissue mass! [Chrusch MJ 2001].

What you need to know about this study: It’s important to note that in this

study the subjects were of advanced age (70’s). This study was funded by

MuscleTech Research and Development, Inc.

So to put it all into perspective, from what I can tell from reviewing clinical

research, working out alone should cause you to gain between 2-5 pounds of

lean mass (remember our baseline with no supplemental protein).

Adding a protein shake after your workout won’t provide any extra benefit and

you should still expect to gain around 2-5 pounds (you just might gain it

quicker). If you increase your overall protein intake you may gain more muscle

mass, possibly increasing the amount you gain over several months by as much

as 2 extra pounds. If you take creatine in conjunction with your workout

program you can expect to gain as much as 10 pounds of muscle mass.

The variation in these numbers (whether you gain 2 or 10 pounds) is most

likely dependant on your training status and the design of your workout

program. Simply put, the better the workout program design, the better the

weight gain. This has even been shown in research where better-designed

workout programs have caused larger increases in lean mass [Kraemer WJ,

2003]. And, no matter how great your workout program is, adding creatine into

the mix will increase the amount of muscle you gain.

The interesting thing with creatine research is that it doesn’t matter whether

you take your creatine alone, in combination with carbs or protein, or a

combination of the two. The research suggests that in any of these styles of

dosing creatine you end up gaining around 7-9 pounds. The protein and carbs

don’t seem to make that much of a difference.

In the conclusion section of a research paper published in 2004, the authors

stated, “It is likely that a significant portion of any increases in fat free mass that

occurs with a supplement containing creatine, protein, amino acids and

carbohydrates is due to the creatine.” [Chromiak, J. 2004]

What you need to know about this study: The quote from Chromiak comes from

a 2004 study that was funded by Numico USA. During the Early 2000’s

Numico owned Met-Rx and GNC.

Based on my findings, I couldn’t agree more. In fact, Here’s a quick ‘insider tip’

for you – if a protein powder has a claim on its label that it ‘builds muscle’ look

in its ingredient list – chances are, you will find creatine monohydrate as an

ingredient.

As far as I am aware, creatine is one of the only ingredients to have enough

evidence behind it to make this strong claim. Supplementing with creatine can

increase the size and weight of your muscles and cause an increase in overall

strength.

Now, you may be wondering ‘if all the results come from the creatine alone,

then why is everyone always talking about taking creating WITH something to

make it better?’. And the answer of course, is money.

Creatine is interesting because not only does it work well, and is cheap to

make, but there is also a lot of intellectual property surrounding creatine.

A quick search of the US patent data base shows that there are hundreds of

patents on the use of creatine, on combining creatine with certain ingredients

and on specific forms of creatine.

These patents are typically created or bought by supplement companies. So if

my supplement company has the patent on selling creatine combined with

blueberry extract, this would mean that no one else can sell creatine combined

with blueberry extract. So you can bet your bottom dollar I’m going to do

everything in my power to convince you that taking creatine with blueberry

extract is the ONLY way to take creatine.

Despite all of these patents, if you review the research and ignore the

advertising it seems logical to say that if you are interested in gaining muscle

mass then simply taking creatine monohydrate is your best option. After all,

why eat tons of extra calories or excessive amounts of protein or pay for special

types of creatine if they don’t make a difference (and instead may even increase

your chance of gaining body fat)?

TYPES OF CREATINE

New ‘fancy’ forms of creatine are coming out every day, Usually

accompanied by the claim that they have somehow improved on one of the

weaknesses of creatine monohydrate. However, most of these weaknesses are

actually myths.

We know that creatine is very ‘bioavailable’ with the overall bioavailability of

standard creatine monohydrate being from 80% [Macneil L, 2005] upwards to

near 100% [Jager R, 2011] depending on dose ingested.

While ‘mega dosing’ with creatine monohydrate is associated with a slightly

lower creatine bioavailabilty, the standard dose of 5-10 grams of creatine

monohydrate per day is associated with a bioavailability ~99% [Jager R, 2007].

This means that close to 100% of the creatine you ingest will eventually make it

to your muscles.

Another myth about Creatine monohydrate powder is that it degrades very

quickly. However, stability research has shown us that creatine monohydrate is

very stable - showing no signs of degradation over years, even at elevated

temperatures. Even when mixed with water, creatine degrades very slowly, and

can be kept dissolved in water in your fridge for several days before you lose

significant amounts of creatine to breakdown.

Even though creatine monohydrate has an exceptional track record, with

excellent support from both clinical research and anecdotal evidence from

users, the market has still seen dozens of ‘new’ types of creatine appear over

the years.

To date, I have not seen any of the ‘fancy’ creatines out perform good ol’

creatine monohydate. From all the different salts of creatine such as creatine

malate, creatine citrate, creatine ascorbate to the newer ‘buffered’ creatines

none of these ingredients have outperformed creatine monohydrate in any

markers of lean body mass or strength measured.

In addition to the creatine salts, newer derivatives of creatine such as creatine

ester or even creatine alcohols are currently available in the USA and Canada.

Interestingly, neither of these ingredients actually contain any creatine, but

rather a chemically altered version of creatine.

While it is assumed that the human body will transform these molecules into

creatine upon intake, there are no published data available confirm this

expectation.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of research showing benefits of

creatine supplementation was completed using creatine monohydrate. And to

date, no other creatine form has vastly outperformed creatine monohydrate

when it comes to gains in lean body mass or strength.

Based on this, I am still convinced that creatine monohydate is the ‘form to

beat’ and I can see no reason to spend extra money on some of the fancier

creatine forms.

NEW THEORIES ON HOW CREATINE WORKS

Recent research has shed some light on why creatine may be so effective,

and it will probably come to no surprise to you that it involves the effect that

creatine has on muscle satellite cells.

In this study, 41 men ranging from 19 to 28 years old (our proverbial sweet spot

of muscle growth) were divided into 4 groups.

Group 1 took a supplement containing 6 grams of creatine + 14 grams of

carbohydrate every day. They also took 80 grams of carbohydrate after

their workouts.

Group 2 took a supplement containing 14 grams of carbohydrate

everyday and took 20 grams of protein and 60 grams of carbohydrate

after each workout.

Group 3 took a supplement containing 14 grams of carbohydrate every

day and took 80 grams of carbohydrate after their workout.

Group 4 had no supplements and also did no training.

The creatine group (group 1) did a traditional loading phase where they took 5

grams of creatine 4 times per day for the first 7 days of the study. After the

loading phase they took a supplement containing 6 grams of creatine plus 14

grams of carbohydrate (flavor) once per day.

The protein group (group 2) did not receive any creatine and instead took 20

grams of protein with 60 grams of carbohydrates as their post-workout

supplement.

The carbohydrate group (group 3) did not receive any creatine or extra protein

and instead took 80 grams of carbohydrate as their post workout supplement.

The final group, was the control group and received no supplements, nor did

they workout.

The men in the first three groups trained 3 times per week for a total of 16

weeks. ALL of these workouts were leg workouts. So these men trained legs 3

days per week. Muscle biopsies were taken at weeks 0, 4, 8 and 16 so that the

researchers could measure the changes that were occurring inside the subjects

muscles.

What was found shouldn’t be too surprising – The creatine group saw the best

increase in the size of their muscles, at weeks 4, 8 and 16. What’s very

interesting is that the creatine group also saw the largest increase in satellite

cells and number of myonuclei per muscle fiber (remember – muscles need new

nuclei in order to grow). The group not receiving creatine or protein saw no

increase in myonuclei, but still did see a transient increase in muscle size (in

line with our theory that the existing nuclei you already have do have some

capacity to increase their domain and thus muscle size) [Kadi 2004]

Interestingly the satellite cell content was no longer significantly elevated at

week 16 in the creatine group, suggesting that the creatine supplementation

accelerated the incorporation of Satellite Cell derived myonuclei to the growing

muscles. So it happened quicker than in the other groups, but still had a

defined limit.

It has long been accepted that the main action of creatine in the body is to

increase the amount of energy provided to your muscles. Specifically increasing

the store of high-energy phosphate groups in the form of phosphocreatine. This

is the energy source that your muscles use during short-term exercise (around

10 seconds or less). During periods of stress, phosphocreatine releases this

energy to aid cellular function.

Based on this theory it’s long been accepted that the way creatine works is by

allowing you lift more weight in the gym, and do more volume (more sets and

reps) and that was how it increased lean body mass. In other words it allowed

you to do more work in the gym and that is why your muscles grew larger.

While this explanation is most likely true to some extent, the actions of creatine

on satellite cells provides a much more feasible and complete explanation for

the muscle growth associated with creatine intake.

Another interesting line of research involves the ability of creatine to increase

the amount of protein signaling molecules in your muscles. Proteins like mTOR

are extremely important to the muscle building process, acting as a relay that

gets the muscle building signal from your body to the nucleus of your muscles

fibers, thus allowing for growth to be initiated. Scientists have found that

creatine may not increase the sensitivity of mTOR, and it also may not actually

‘activate’ mTOR, instead (and this could even be better for your long term

muscle gains) creatine may increase the amount of signaling molecules in this

pathway leading to the idea that creatine can cause a ‘better’ or ‘louder’ muscle

growth signal in your muscles [Safdar A, 2008].

ISN’T IT JUST WATER WEIGHT?

Regarding the increase in muscle size that is associated with creatine

use; the argument that it is ‘mostly water weight’ is a bit misleading. It’s

misleading because your muscles are ‘mostly water weight’ to begin with.

Human muscle is anywhere from 75 to 80% water. And the amount of water

within each muscle tends to increase in more heavily muscled individuals.

Saying creatine adds water weight is very similar to saying creatine adds

muscle weight.

When scientists looked at actual muscle fibers it was found that Creatine

supplementation was able to increase muscle fiber size. Even if this increase in

muscle fiber weight was a result of an increase in hydration (water in the

muscle) it’s important to realize that this was in the actual muscle fibers. This

means the diameter of the muscle fiber was increasing – it wasn’t just water

around the muscle, or in between the fibers but an actual true increase in

muscle fiber diameter [Safdar A, 2009].

Finally, this increase in muscle fiber hydration has been speculated to decrease

protein oxidation rates, which lead to increases in nitrogen balance and

indirectly increases muscle mass [Parise G, 2001; Berneis, K 1999]. In fact

cellular swelling has been described as being similar to fasting in that it

demonstrates a metabolic adaptation that results in protein sparing associated

with increased lipolysis, ketogenesis and lipid oxidation (three markers of fat

burning) [Keller U, 2003; Bilz S, 1999].    

The argument that the weight added by creatine is ‘mostly water’ seems to be a

nonsensical argument seeing as ANY increase in muscle size is ‘mostly water’

and there may be a slight anabolic and even fat burning advantage to having

well or properly hydrated muscle fibers.

Interestingly, it is exactly this chronic increase in muscle hydration that may be

at least partially responsible for the ‘activatation’ of satellite cells we see with

creatine use.

A satellite cell is responsible for the inner-workings of a certain amount or

length of a muscle fiber. The best example would be to think of a ruler. The

ruler would represent your muscle fiber, and each ‘inch mark’ would be a

satellite cell. The space between each inch would be the area that each specific

satellite cell would be responsible for. This area is called the myonuclear

domain.

When creatine hydrates a muscle this myonuclear domain increases, but each

nucleus can only handle so much domain, and once the domain becomes too

larg then another nuclei will be needed to split the domain into so that each

nucleus can properly oversee all of the metabolic happenings of that specific

area. Therefore, it is completely plausible that simply by chronically hydrating

an actual muscle fiber, creatine is able to force the activation of satellite cells to

provide more nuclei to control the new domain.

An increase in the water weight of a muscle itself may be the key to the muscle

building potential of creatine.

TECHNIQUES FOR OPTIMIZING CREATINE

It is believed that you begin to see the benefits of taking creatine once

your internal stores are maximized, and once your internal levels of creatine

reach their peak, they simply cannot go any higher.

Creatine follows a dose-dependent relationship, meaning the more creatine you

ingest the more your serum levels increases. However the rate of creatine

uptake and storage into your muscle cells may be maximized at a serum

concentration achievable with 5 grams per day.

While early research on creatine suggested the need for a loading phase –

taking 5 grams of creatine 4 times per day for the first 5 days of use, the more

recent research on creatine has found that a dose of 3 grams of creatine

monohydrate per day for 30 days is enough creatine to maximize internal

stores. The benefit of loading is that it gets you to the maximal internal levels

of creatine in the quickest possible way.

However, the research showing that 3 grams of creatine for 30 days was enough

to maximize muscle stores was conducted on ~70 kilogram men (about 155

pounds). So men heavier than this weight, or with more Lean Body Mass then

would be considered average may have to take a higher dose for this affect to

occur. The safest bet would be 5 grams per day for well muscle men.

Realistically, over the course of a 12-16 week weight training period, you will

probably see little to no difference between the two methods of creatine

supplementation.

Finally, with regards to the use of creatine for muscle building – there are a

number of important facts that you need to know if you plan on optimizing your

creatine intake.

It is true that resistance exercise enhances the rate of creatine uptake into

muscle cells, but this is ONLY true for the muscles that were actively engaged

during the workout. In other words creatine uptake in the muscle is specific to

the muscle that was recently trained with resistance exercise.

Initially thought to be a byproduct of enhanced blood flow [Harris RC, 1992],

the enhanced creatine uptake is now thought to be due to changes in the

creatine transporter, which enhance its maximal capacity [Robinson TM, 1999].

This line of research shows us a new way we could use creatine monohydrate to

reach our goals. If your goal is to maximize the size of a specific muscle or

group of muscles you could try training that muscle group 3 to 4 times in one

week, while at the same time doing a loading phase with creatine monohydrate.

This theoretically should then provide those specific muscles with a creatine

induced anabolic advantage over the next several weeks of training.

We know that the elevated creatine levels that occur after creatine

supplementation tend to return to baseline after roughly 30 days (4 weeks)

without creatine supplementation [Preen D, 2003; Febbraio MA, 1995].

However, despite creatine levels returning to baseline their ergogenic effects

seems to continue for a period, and the increase in lean body mass also seems

to be mostly maintained [Rawson ES, 2004].

Based on the above information, it would be best to only attempt this approach

once every 6 weeks, and only taking creating during each loading phase.

If your goal is overall gains in lean body mass then you could try a whole body

approach. Research has shown that creatine uptake can be increased by near

supraphsyiological amounts of the hormone insulin. Research has also shown

that this level can be reached with a dose of ~100 grams of dextrose (Sugar) or

50 grams of protein combined with 50 grams of carbohydrate. If your goal is to

get a whole body balanced muscle growth then you should take your creatine

with high doses of carbohydrates or a carbohydrate protein blend to ensure a

‘whole body’ uptake of creatine monohydrate. At the very least this should

occur during the loading phase period.

If you do not want to follow either of these more aggressive protocols then you

could simply take 5-10 grams of creatine, once a day, either with food, or after

your workouts.

It is important to remember that we have not seen any evidence that these

dramatic muscle-building effects are repeatable.

In other words, in almost every research paper studying the benefits of creatine,

the subjects were using creatine for the very first time. If the people in a

creatine trial were to enroll in a second research study examining the effects of

creatine on muscle building I would be very surprised if they were able to gain

the same amount of muscle.

So while creatine has been shown to be effective in many different research

studies, it is always important to remember that it has not been shown to be

continually effective for gaining measureable amounts of muscle mass – the

results may lessen over time.

This may reflect a limit to the ability of creatine to increase muscle size via

satellite cell incorporation, or it may have been a limitation of the way we have

been using creatine – perhaps not allowing enough time inbetween doses or

cycles.

While we don’t really have a consensus as to the perfect way to take creatine,

we do know that there are multiple ways to use creatine to build muscle, and

there are ways to target and direct the effect.

 

CONCLUSIONS  

 

Creatine is a dietary supplement that is legal in most countries, has

almost 20 years of proven results, with little-to-no side effects.

It has countless imitators and ‘improvements’ all of which seem unnecessary for

the most part. It seems to work through several mechanisms, from supplying

more energy for your workouts to activating satellite cells to be incorporated

into your muscle fibers, thereby allowing for more growth.

It can be dosed differently depending on your needs and there is even the

possibility that how we use creatine (taking a little bit every day for months on

end) may not be the optimal way to use creatine to change the look of our

bodies.

The bottom line is that is a cheap, effective supplement than can come in both

pill and powder form that seems to have the ability to increase the size your

muscles above and beyond any other legal supplement to date.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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