How much does Creatine help out?

[Brighty]

Say I workout three days a week (nothing hardcore, I'm not that strong yet) and after I workout I use whey protien and mix it in with milk and drink it, but I'm interested in faster results (especially for my arms, my chest muscles are pretty developed already) - would Creatine help me out in that regard? And if so, how fast would I begin to see results and when do I drink it?

Thanks for the help.

 

[The Inside Man]

I'd say supplements are 2-3% importance in the scale of diet, nutrition, work ethic, consistency, and rest. I don't use them much anymore, but it can help give you a boost and help recovery, but it's much less important than eating right and giving it everything you've got in the gym.

 

[Warboss Alex]

no, it's not essential. helpful yes but far from essential. it is a 'second level' supplement.

there are no quick results in this game; if you want your arms to grow, you'd better work your back and legs as well (and your chest). otherwise you can curl til the cows come home and gain nothing.

 

[squirrels]

It isn't a steroid...it doesn't help your muscles build.

What it DOES do is force water into your muscles and help push out lactic acid, promoting faster recovery and allowing you to "get that extra rep or two". In other words, it helps you work out. But YOU have to do the work.

It's helped me in the past. But if you take it, take it with PLENTY of water. Because it forces water from your body into the muscles, it can starve other parts of your body. My college roommate ended up with kidney stones as a result.

 

[mrRuckus]

It's helped me in the past. But if you take it, take it with PLENTY of water. Because it forces water from your body into the muscles, it can starve other parts of your body. My college roommate ended up with kidney stones as a result.

How can you be sure that's why he had kidney stones?

Lots and lots of people pass kidney stones. And even more have them and never pass one.


eh, i'm just picky... in any event, lots of water...

 

[Omen]

The truth is, NOTHING will replace what was mentioned. You cant take something, and do nothing. You still have to have the whole lifestyle down. You have to eat right, train right, sleep, etc etc.

Now does it work? Yeah it works, and is the most proven supplement out there.

Here is the thing with creatine. You can only store so much, so the more you take, doesn't mean squat. The body can only hold 154 mmol/kg

The total concentration in the body is about 120 mmol/kg

To achieve the 154 what is still suggested is to do about 20g a day or so for 5-7 days. This increases the muscle creatine about 20% which is thought to be about the upper limit of what I said above of 154 mmol/kg

Then the suggested way to take is about 2-5g per day.

Take it with glucose (i'm talking plain creatine) as it enhances its uptake.

Your short term loading is suggested to improve the ability to maintain muscular force and power output.

You can take it for 30-60 days, then cycle off of it, and back on.

Again, MAKE SURE you do everything else too. IMO creatine is still by far the best supplement because of its studies. In fact I like to take it, and can say i've found it to do a better job than anything else i've ever tried, including prohormones.

You can venture off into the other forms of creatine out there, and they may very well do better than just monohydrate, BUT the thing on all of those are that they have not been studied as much as the plain old stuff. You dont have 15yrs of studies on CEE, Creatine-AKG, etc etc. They are promising though, and the plain stuff is supposedly obsolete. The reason on this is more the transport mechanism, and the uptake by the body. Not the fact that adding all the rest of the ingredients gives you any more added benefit besides its utilization in the body. 10 different forms or not, you can only up take so much.

If you stick with the plain stuff, I suggest Creapure creatine which is the best form cause its 99.9% free of impurities that aren't supposed to be in your creatine.

Read their site, and look at their info about it. Notice their charts too on creatine concentrations and how its close to what I stated.

http://www.creapure.com/index.php?id=53&L=1