I have read and heard LOTS of success with this. I read that it is best to do a mass phase of 25g per day for 7 days, then after the 7days take 5g per day from then on. Just a quick question on when to take it... Should I take the creatine 30 mins or so before each workout? During the workout? Esspecially during my massing phase 25g seems like a lot, would it hurt to take 12.5 in the morning then the other 12.5 before my workout?

Any help or personal use is greatly appreciated... thanks!! :cool:

Before workout take half of dose, after take the other dose with grape juice. Hit weights hard.

Before workout take half of dose, after take the other dose with grape juice. Hit weights hard.

So during the mass phase take 12 before, then 12 after... and after the week take 2.5 before, and 2.5 after?

Also, is this a good supplement to take long term? I know a few people that say they take it off and on, any reasons why?

During loading, spread the 25g throughout the day. During maintenance, take the 5g right after you work out with grape juice or gatorade.

Loading is a waste of money IMO.

10g in your post workout shake. 5g on off days

Loading is a waste of money IMO.



I agree, but I wasnt oing to mention it. I take 5g every day.

I have heard from more than one reputable source that the so-called loading phase is unnecessary and wasteful of your supplement (one person who told me happens to be the bodybuilder who owns the health food store where I shop, and he has every reason to try to sell me more). The human body contains about 130g's of creatine stored in muscle throughout the body normally. The body can only process approximately 5 to 8 g's of pure creatine per day no matter how much you feed yourself; the rest is wasted from your body.

He also suggested that I take the creatine in a very specific way. Buy plain creatine monohydrate, Gatorade powder, and 100 or 200 mg CLA (conjugated lineolic acid) capsules. Break the capsule open and mix it with two tablespoons of creatine (or whatever your brand's equivalent of 5 to 8 g's is). The CLA must be mixed in because it needs to be digested simultaneously with the creatine. CLA is supposedly a reliable transports mechanism that the body can use to shuttle nutrients to muscle, therefore, by taking it directly with your creatine, you're getting a better chance that it will be taken directly to your muscles. This is the basis of the Nitro-Tech brand creatine that's so popular (and so expensive). My health food salesman calls it a "poor man's Nitro-Tech". Even though he carries the stuff, he prefers to sell you what'll work as opposed to what'll cost you more.... therefore I trust his advice. Well, that and his shelf full of trophies from competitions...

I've been using this method of taking creatine for a year now (three months on, one month off cycles) and since the initial 39-lb. weight loss, I've exchanged 10-lbs of fat for lean muscle taking creatine in this manner. It has worked wonders for me. I prefer to take mine after my workout because creatine tends to upset my stomach if I try to workout with it in there. You can take 1/2 before and 1/2 after, but I'm not a big fan of it and creatine shouldn't be mixed with water until it's ready to be taken as it quickly breaks down when introduced in water. It becomes creatinine and when that happens, it's no longer useful to your muscles. If you decide to do the half-and-half method, mix each half with water only minutes before you take it. Creatine can be kept in water for up to eight hours before it completely breaks down, but it begins to break down within 45 minutes of being introduced into water.

Hope this helps...

Yes thank you all!! It helps a lot!

Also, I have been taking glutamaine now for a few weeks (half before workout, half after) and if I do that half/half thing with the creatine as well, would it hurt to mix them both into one glass of water?

creatine shouldn't be mixed with water until it's ready to be taken as it quickly breaks down when introduced in water. It becomes creatinine and when that happens, it's no longer useful to your muscles. but it begins to break down within 45 minutes of being introduced into water....

Where did you learn about creatinine? The medical dictionary says:

Creatinine: A chemical waste molecule that is generated from muscle metabolism. Creatinine is produced from creatine, a molecule of major importance for energy production in muscles. Approximately 2% of the body's creatine is converted to creatinine every day. Creatinine is transported through the bloodstream to the kidneys. The kidneys filter out most of the creatinine and dispose of it in the urine.

It would seem to take more than water and time. I had heard of loading by mixing 20 grams creatine and sugar in a gallon of ice water and sipping it throughout the day, each day for a week. Source was Dr. Ellington Darden. After that 5gms in water after breakfast.

RTE

Also, I have been taking glutamaine now for a few weeks (half before workout, half after) and if I do that half/half thing with the creatine as well, would it hurt to mix them both into one glass of water?
Creatine and glutamine mix great (they don't compete with each other).

It would seem to take more than water and time. I had heard of loading by mixing 20 grams creatine and sugar in a gallon of ice water and sipping it throughout the day, each day for a week. Source was Dr. Ellington Darden. After that 5gms in water after breakfast.
Bluestreak's advice is the popular opinion about letting creatine stay in liquid for a long time. It's why creatine suspended in dropper form doesn't work well. I'm not saying that you're wrong rtestes, because I don't know any better than what I read, just pointing out that Bluestreak's quote is what I have read also.

I wish I could tell you where I read that. I've read so many books and magazines regarding fitness and various supplements over the past year-plus that I can't cite any one source. I'll probably mention him often, since I ask his advice often, but my guru at the health food store believes this to be the case as well.

Creatine is digested best with some sort of sugar/transport. I don't see how drinking a gallon of water with 20 g's of creatine throughout the day would do any better, if not worse. Assuming it's mixed homogenously - and anyone who's taken creatine before knows about those little granules you can never quite keep mixed in the glass - you'd be getting about 0.16 grams of creatine per ounce of water, or a 1.3 g's of creatine per 8-oz's of water. That's not much and I wonder if your body wouldn't simply bypass the water and possibly miss absorption of the creatine. I know water goes through me like poop through a goose...

What a coinsidence, i just baught my first tub of createine, so i take it loading is a complete waist of time, even the first time you take it?.

What a coinsidence, i just baught my first tub of createine, so i take it loading is a complete waist of time, even the first time you take it?.

you should always load at the beginning of a creatine cycle in my opinion. i do this but i have seen articles that say it is not needed. i have done it both ways and i definetly got the "pump" in my muscles when i loaded first. i couldnt tell a difference when i didnt load first. some people dont respond at all to creatine. i think its like one in five dont but dont quote me on that number.

What a coinsidence, i just baught my first tub of createine, so i take it loading is a complete waist of time, even the first time you take it?.

My research says "yes", it's a waste of your supplement to load...

The theory behind a loading phase is that you're shocking your system with more creatine than it can usefully absorb. Theoretically, that creatine-spike is supposed to assist you in reaching a saturation point, then you back down to a "maintenance dose". In reality, your body will only take what it can absorb - which is around 5~10 g's per day - and it will waste the rest through your kidneys. You will reach saturation just as fast with a "maintenance" dose as you will loading it.

Jeez... this could get long... but I feel the need to let this info out, because I've heard so many people speak wrongly of what creatine actually does...

ATP is the fuel your muscles burn and it then becomes ADP (sorry peeps, look up the acronyms if you're that curious, I think it's adenose di/tri phosphate). ADP must be converted back to ATP to produce energy. Creatine is stored in the human body as creatine phosphate, or CP, and when ATP is depleted, it can be recharged by CP. That is, CP is broken down into creatinine and phosphate, the phosphate reattaches to the ADP cell becoming ATP again (diphosphate to triphosphate). By increasing the creatine in your body, you increase the potential for faster recharge of ATP. If you can produce more ATP, you can perform more work. This is why creatine is so popular - for short-duration or explosive sports (like weight lifting) ATP is the energy system used - the ability to quickly recharge it means we can do more. That's really all creatine does. Makes your muscles more efficient.

The real speculation and debate seems to be around whether it actually assists in synthesizing new protein for muscle generation... because the theory is, if there's more energy available to the muscle, it also means more energy can be spent on creating new muscle as well as running the muscle itself.

The idea that "people don't respond" to creatine is untrue in my opinion... everybody will respond to it, but whether or not your feel the physiological effects is the difference. Consider that when you take creatine you're talking about an increase of around 8% of your body's total available creatine. That's not much, so you may not feel the effects, but they're there. At the very least, it does cause more water to be shuttled to the muscle, volumizing it and increasing its ability to cleanse itself of waste products, again, making the muscle more efficient.

My results make me happy with creatine, so I continue to use it. If you read about the benefits of creatine (I have yet to find anything conclusively damaging about creatine) it assists in all sorts of disease prevention, has many anti-aging capabilities, and is generally a benefit to your health.

here is a link from bodybuilding.com. the article is written by Jeremy who is very well know and respected around here. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/likness2.htm
i would also like to see any articles anyone has about not loading creatine and responsiveness to it. it think i should see both sides.

Creatine is digested best with some sort of sugar/transport. I don't see how drinking a gallon of water with 20 g's of creatine throughout the day would do any better, if not worse. Assuming it's mixed homogenously...

He adds about 1/2 cup of sugar to facilitate insulin release. Darden is a big believer in drinking more than a gallon of ice water a day for numerous benefits, so he kills two birds with one stone. Nearly all meds want you to take them with water. He also feels the slow sipping over 12 hours allows better asorption.

He also mentions caffeinated drinks cancel out the loading effects.

RTE

He also mentions caffeinated drinks cancel out the loading effects.

I don't know much about caffeine's effect on creatine and what I do know is pure word-of-mouth. If you ingest caffeine on a loading phase, it tends to cause little to no CP storage enhancement. If caffeine is ingested on maintenance doses of creatine, you'd want to avoid caffeine within three hours (pre and post) of when you'll take your creatine.

I do enjoy a cup of black coffee in the morning. Since I'm not a believer in a load phase, that matters little to me. I take my creatine at night after my evening workout, which is 10+ hours separated from my morning coffee.

I have also heard that no matter what, caffeine does not inhibit the volumizing ability of creatine.

I read JL's BB.com article on creatine. It has many points of interest, but I don't agree with some of his ideas on the phasing portion based on personal experience. If you think loading is the way to go, by all means, do it! Sometimes I wonder if supplements aren't just as successful as placebos as they are truly, scientifically plausible performance aids.

My research says "yes", it's a waste of your supplement to load...

The theory behind a loading phase is that you're shocking your system with more creatine than it can usefully absorb. Theoretically, that creatine-spike is supposed to assist you in reaching a saturation point, then you back down to a "maintenance dose". In reality, your body will only take what it can absorb - which is around 5~10 g's per day - and it will waste the rest through your kidneys. You will reach saturation just as fast with a "maintenance" dose as you will loading it.

Jeez... this could get long... but I feel the need to let this info out, because I've heard so many people speak wrongly of what creatine actually does...

ATP is the fuel your muscles burn and it then becomes ADP (sorry peeps, look up the acronyms if you're that curious, I think it's adenose di/tri phosphate). ADP must be converted back to ATP to produce energy. Creatine is stored in the human body as creatine phosphate, or CP, and when ATP is depleted, it can be recharged by CP. That is, CP is broken down into creatinine and phosphate, the phosphate reattaches to the ADP cell becoming ATP again (diphosphate to triphosphate). By increasing the creatine in your body, you increase the potential for faster recharge of ATP. If you can produce more ATP, you can perform more work. This is why creatine is so popular - for short-duration or explosive sports (like weight lifting) ATP is the energy system used - the ability to quickly recharge it means we can do more. That's really all creatine does. Makes your muscles more efficient.

The real speculation and debate seems to be around whether it actually assists in synthesizing new protein for muscle generation... because the theory is, if there's more energy available to the muscle, it also means more energy can be spent on creating new muscle as well as running the muscle itself.

The idea that "people don't respond" to creatine is untrue in my opinion... everybody will respond to it, but whether or not your feel the physiological effects is the difference. Consider that when you take creatine you're talking about an increase of around 8% of your body's total available creatine. That's not much, so you may not feel the effects, but they're there. At the very least, it does cause more water to be shuttled to the muscle, volumizing it and increasing its ability to cleanse itself of waste products, again, making the muscle more efficient.

My results make me happy with creatine, so I continue to use it. If you read about the benefits of creatine (I have yet to find anything conclusively damaging about creatine) it assists in all sorts of disease prevention, has many anti-aging capabilities, and is generally a benefit to your health.


So createine can also help me flush out lactic acid the day(s) after my jog?.