Is creatine good for you? Creatine is a popular dietary supplement that is beneficial for increasing muscle, strength, and energy during intense workouts.

Research studies show that creatine can increase muscle mass, strength and performance while exercising. It helps your muscles produce energy during heavy resistance workouts and high intensity training.

Is creatine good for you? iStock-photo credit: dolgachov

The demographic that benefits from taking this more than anybody is older adults and vegetarians because they don’t eat enough protein and meat in their diet. Creatine is found in meat food sources such as steak, beef, fish, etc. And vegetarians are deficient in this so that is why Creatine is such a great dietary supplement to help supply those food nutrients that are missing in your diet.

95% of your creatine stores are found in your muscles and the other 5% is found in your brain and testes. Creatine is effective because it increases the ATP in your body. And ATP is identified as your body’s energy currency. When you have more ATP in your body it can perform better during exercise.

During high intensity exercise its primary role is to increase the phosphocreatine stores in your muscles. Some of the different ways that creatine can help you build muscle is the following:

  • Prevent muscle breakdown when exercising at a high intensity level.
  • Improve workload in a single training session.
  • Increase the water content in your muscles
  • Improve cell signaling by heightening muscle repair.

There was a 2019 research study that showed that creatine with or without resistance training improved muscle mass and strength in older adults. Some of the older studies have shown that creatine can improve muscle fiber growth 2 to 3 times more than training alone. More of the recent studies have shown more modest results.

Some of the sports studies have shown improvement in cycling power if you are cycling during a sprint trial. It can improve jumping and sprinting benefits in athletes. It can improve muscle and endurance strength in young athletes during resistance training.

ATP becomes depleted after about 10 seconds of high intensity activity. And creatine helps you maintain that optimal performance for a little bit longer. And that small difference can be huge, especially if you are competing in a sport that requires endurance or speed.

A good daily dosage is about 3 to 5 grams of creatine daily if you choose not to do the loading phase. The loading phase would be 20 grams of creatine per day for about 5 to 7 days. And then after that you go back to the normal dosage phase of 3 to 5 grams of creatine daily. The purpose of the loading phase is to maximize your creatine stores.

But I don’t think it is a requirement you have to do. The normal dosage of 3 to 5 grams per day is perfectly fine if you don’t want to maximize your creatine stores.

Because creatine pulls water into your muscles cells it is important to drink water to keep yourself hydrated. Contrary to what any doctor or random influencer may say there is no evidence that shows that taking creatine at normal dosages will harm your kidneys or liver.

The Bottom Line is creatine is one of the best dietary supplements when it comes to building lean muscle mass for all adults whether you do resistance training or not. So, creatine is good for your overall health.

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