subject: Looking at the Creatine Hype [print this page] Looking at the Creatine Hype Looking at the Creatine Hype
Creatine supplementation is causing a buzz among athletes and body builders. It is highly regarded as a muscle builder, an energy source and a recovery agent.
Historical studies show that experiments were being conducted in the 1920s and 1930s on the precursors of creatine.
In Barcelona at the 1922 Olympic Games athletes began to notice the first positive results of using creatine supplements. It is believed that several of the British gold medallists partially owed their success to this supplement.
This is an idea of how it works:
Creatine is made naturally in our bodies from the amino acids arginine, methionine and glycine. When large demands are made on the muscles, and the need arises for an increase in the amount of creatine in the muscles and consequently more available energy, we use creatine supplementation. Once the athlete has loaded' creatine, it remains in the muscles for quite a long time unaffected by the amount of work. The half-life' is believed to be about four to six weeks. In other words, every four to six weeks the amount of creatine remaining in the muscles is halved. The required amount of extra creatine among individuals varies greatly.
It provides an energy reserve that fuels muscular contraction.
Apart from the energy release of the stored creatine in the muscles, the actual swelling action of cellular water retention is believed to have a positive effect. It is thought that this gives extra leverage to help with muscle building and possibly the outward pressure on the cell walls may stimulate muscle cell growth.
It also speeds up recovery time in between tough workouts or extreme sporting efforts. Without creatine supplementation it can sometimes take days for complete recovery after exceptionally hard bursts of energy.
There are other supplements that work synergistically with creatine and enhance its performance, such as D-Ribose. Carbohydrate taken in solution along with creatine is believed to stimulate the body's insulin transport capabilities so as to deliver the supplement quickly to the cells.
Creatine supplementation is not for every sportsman. Studies show that it is most effective in weight and resistance training, high intensity training, and sports that require explosive bursts of energy such as sprinting, football and other high intensity intermittent activities. It isn't so effective for longer, slower, sustained energy sports, such as long distance running, mountain climbing and aerobic exercises that require endurance.
Be warned: there is a catch to the use of extra creatine; that is you cannot take the supplement and not work out. Otherwise you will just pick up water weight and become waterlogged. This is not a slimming supplement! In fact, you must expect to pick up weight. You can anticipate picking up one or two kilos during the first week of supplementation and this will be water weight. After this, as long as you keep working out, any weight you pick up will be muscle weight.
