creatine?

[s60tsy]

can someone explain to me what it is for please?

[vtrchris64]

From what ive been told creatine is already used in your body for muscle growth, taking more of it will help with faster muscle growth.
I can highly recommend it if your thinking of using it i put on half a stone using it and plan on buying some more

[Danadaman_3]

it tastes like shite apparently though so be warned! creatine gives muscle definition not bulk!

[bullit]

it doesnt taste of anything there is no flavour. as said you already have it and get it from certain meat, but to get enough of a serving youve got to eat a full animal. thus a supplement. will increase strength but noticeably give you stamina to train longer, harder.you really notice when you are not on it.It also swells yours muscles with water and you get proper pumps.
Be careful of overtraining though, sometimes feels like youve not done enough when actually you have, thus having a negative effect.
taken with pure orange is absorbed better and should be cycled 2 months on 1 month on ect

[s60tsy]

well i go to the gym 3 times a week now, and was thinking about getting some, i run and row for a while but i also use weights aswell, so i think this would be a good suplement for me, am i right?

[barrettp]

Originally Posted by Danadaman_3

it tastes like shite apparently though so be warned! creatine gives muscle definition not bulk!

Wrong due to water retention it doesnt give definition it adds fake size due to water supersaturation of the muscle

[barrettp]

Originally Posted by bullit

it doesnt taste of anything there is no flavour. as said you already have it and get it from certain meat, but to get enough of a serving youve got to eat a full animal. thus a supplement. will increase strength but noticeably give you stamina to train longer, harder.you really notice when you are not on it.It also swells yours muscles with water and you get proper pumps.
Be careful of overtraining though, sometimes feels like youve not done enough when actually you have, thus having a negative effect.
taken with pure orange is absorbed better and should be cycled 2 months on 1 month on ect

Spot on!

The way the system works:
Creatine is present naturally and is produced in the kidneys in a different form. It is used to transport glucose into the muscles along with water. Hence causing larger amounts of water in the muscles, making them look bigger, with the correct training you will increase the amount you can lift and hence the muscles will grow.

Creatine does work (but the reflex stuff is crap). It can be used for weight training and cardio training.

At the moment the long term effect of creatine are unknown. Hence why you should cycle it as we are not sure if long term use will result in the body stopping production of it naturally.

Mike

[PinguFurio]

yes, you can get 'fake muscle' from creatine, and you can get water retention from taking creatine..causing you to drink loads and lodas of water each day. but if you get shit creatine thats what happens. i work out 4 times a week and have been for a while. the creatines ive used are hypercell, bsn no xplode, kre-alkyln and another one called meta-cell.. and out of all of them, no other one works best than meta-cell, you gain muscle.. none of the soft water muscle crap. its good stuff, just dont over train, eat good food, sleep enough, and you'll see alot of difference.

[WestyVTR]

Originally Posted by s60tsy

can someone explain to me what it is for please?

The key to understanding creatine supplementation is to appreciate that it only helps with certain activities. A basic review of what creatine is, and how it is used in the body will help you understand how supplements of it maybe beneficial. First, the basics. Muscle cells work from an energy liberating chemical reaction – ATP (AdenosineTriPhospate) is split into ADP (AdenosineDiPhospate) and P (Phosphate). ATP can be used by muscle cells very quickly, but there is only an extremely limited supply - only enough for a few seconds of high intensity work. When the ATP is gone, the work stops. Fortunately, the body has several ways to convert ADP back to ATP. The fastest method is to move the Phosphate group off of CreatinePhospahte (CP) and onto ADP. This yields ATP - which is immediately available for muscular work

The body can recharge creatine back to phosphocreatine, but this takes time (approximately 30 - 60 seconds).

This is the fastest component of the anaerobic system, and is most used by power athletes.



Where does creatine come from?
The creatine that is normally present in human muscle may come from two potential sources, dietary (animal flesh), and/or internally manufactured. What isn't present in the diet is easily made by the liver and kidneys from a few amino acids (glycine, arginine, and methionine). An adult has about 120g of creatine in there muscles, and the daily turnover is roughly 2g. About half of this is replaced by the diet and half synthesized endogenously. The exogenous intake of creatine appears to exert negative feedback on the endogenous production of creatine (i.e., more creatine present in the diet means less production by the body). Creatine is eliminated from the body by the kidneys either as creatine, or as creatinine, which is formed from the metabolism of creatine.

In the early 1900's it was discovered that increased dietary creatine resulted in increased muscular stores of creatine and also creatinephosphate. A study published in 1992, demonstrated approximately a 20% increase in total creatine stores in subjects fed 20 g of creatine per day for several days. This increase appears to be the upper limit and it has been shown that, even over a few days, a progressively increasing percentage of supplemented creatine ends up in the urine….. pee it out…. There goes your money…
Since creatine supplementation increases muscular creatine levels, the next logical step would be to see if this helped performance. You would expect that power athletes would benefit, and endurance athletes, not. Current exercise studies to date, have confirmed that!



increaseing the amount of creatine will give you an improvement yes - but its all false as when you stop taking it - all the gains go too....! You will retain more water as said above & possibly over train leading to you acually losing strength! & posible injuring yourself as you think you can lift weights you actually cant... It will not increase you stamina at all ( Vo2Max ) add to this the fact that you should have nothing less than pewrfect technique when lifting weights... & the reasons for taking creatine arnt really justified unless you really are serious about training & undersatand its effects....

Hope this helps :thumbup:

[barrettp]

Originally Posted by WestyVTR

increaseing the amount of creatine will give you an improvement yes - but its all false as when you stop taking it - all the gains go too....!

Thats not true Westy.

When you stop using it you do drop down in weight yes. However, you do not drop down to where you where when you started taking it. For example if you are lifing 30kg before you are taking it and then get an improvement to 45kg whilst you are taking the creaitine you will find when you stop you will drop to 40kg. Threre is some long term benefit otherwise it would not be legal to sell as a suppliment. So its not all false and not all the gains are lost.

You will find that this initial loss in strength is due to the drop in the level of creatine in your system and also due to your kidneys having to start producing it again which take a short period for them to realise the levels are low.

I have experience that from personal experience.

[Daniel_VTR]

So anyone reccomend the best type?

[barrettp]

meta-cell is good but expensive and the tub doesnt seem to last all that long.

I had some pro-lad stuff which was good, but there is better.

Have a search on some suppliment website and then look at the feedback about them and then go from there.

Mike

[WestyVTR]

Originally Posted by barrett

Thats not true Westy.

When you stop using it you do drop down in weight yes. However, you do not drop down to where you where when you started taking it. For example if you are lifing 30kg before you are taking it and then get an improvement to 45kg whilst you are taking the creaitine you will find when you stop you will drop to 40kg. Threre is some long term benefit otherwise it would not be legal to sell as a suppliment. So its not all false and not all the gains are lost.

You will find that this initial loss in strength is due to the drop in the level of creatine in your system and also due to your kidneys having to start producing it again which take a short period for them to realise the levels are low.

I have experience that from personal experience.

Im affraid that statement is true! You lose the gains that you have when taking it! I am not saying you will returm to the state you were before!! you would have obviously improved! but you will not be able to lift the weight you could while using suppliments!! The long term affects of creatine suppliments are not evident yet either so there is also that to teh equasion... IMO Whey protein is a better suppliment than creatine... from experience i know alot of ppl go from using creatine to using steroids as they want to lift more & more & look better....

[bullit]

i wouldnt say any gains are false, true you will have massive pumps after the gym but the object is to help lift more and train harder thus createing more muscle tears = moremuscle. as barrett said you will drop down weight a little after stopping taking it but you will be lifting more than previous, due to creating more muscle when on it. its like a little cycle. obviously youll be eating correctly aswell.

s60tsy id only use if youve got to the point where your training intensely enough now and want to go up a level. if your not i woundnt bother. id recommend a whey supplement after workout too.

i used to take dorian yates creatine

[barrettp]

Westy you just said pretty much what i said. I agree with your last post.

The only point at which taking creatine is really worth while is when you come to a physical barrier where you are stuck on the same weight for a while and want to get past this barrier.

Whey protein is THE best suppliment that you can take, but again you have to choose your brand carefully due to the amount of crap in them. I want protein, not 30g of protein plus a shed load of carbs!!

[WestyVTR]

Originally Posted by barrett

Westy you just said pretty much what i said. I agree with your last post.

The only point at which taking creatine is really worth while is when you come to a physical barrier where you are stuck on the same weight for a while and want to get past this barrier.

Whey protein is THE best suppliment that you can take, but again you have to choose your brand carefully due to the amount of crap in them. I want protein, not 30g of protein plus a shed load of carbs!!

its clear we are speakingthe same language then LOL

Just to add a curve ball to the equasion alot of ppl dont understand that it isnt the protein that builds muscle its the amino acids!! they are the building block of many things... & these can come from many sources - not including ketchup!

my advise is simple tho if you want fast gains for a while then use the creatine! if you want to improve for the long term then a lil protein suppliment goes a long Whey! but not alot is needed.... if you over load on protein it will just come out the other end & cause your body a stress as it needs2 work harder at processing it through you!

[WestyVTR]

Originally Posted by bullit

i wouldnt say any gains are false, true you will have massive pumps after the gym but the object is to help lift more and train harder thus createing more muscle tears = moremuscle. as barrett said you will drop down weight a little after stopping taking it but you will be lifting more than previous, due to creating more muscle when on it. its like a little cycle. obviously youll be eating correctly aswell.

s60tsy id only use if youve got to the point where your training intensely enough now and want to go up a level. if your not i woundnt bother. id recommend a whey supplement after workout too.

i used to take dorian yates creatine

i wouldnt state anything if i wasnt 100% sure....

These Pumps that you speak of are simply your muscles filled with lactic / piruthic acid this is a by product of anearobic respiration, that has occurd when your lifting the weights.

the weights you will be lifting after using creatine, will be similar to that you would be lifting if you had trained for that period properly with out using it anyways... just your technique will proberly be shot to pieces & you wuill have plenty more fauklty recruitment patterns to undo with correct training!

[stuartQPR1]

You would be better off getting some unflavoured whey

[barrettp]

The other thing come in eating right. People think that as they have gone to the gym they need to have a large meal to replace what has been used up. This is true but need to be taken in small and regular amount otherwise you are just wasting it.

Small but regular (every 3 hours) is the way to have the meals!

Mike

[PinguFurio]

whey? totally different.
anyhows.. meta cell is really good can be expensive, but it is good stuff. i heard pro lab is pretty good, and sounds like barrett used it too, so give it ago.
i would only use meta-cell or prolab.