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Creatine: What can it do for you?
Creatine has numerous notable benefits, and numerous more that are currently being researched. In this article I’ll address the benefits for athletes and other fitness oriented people.
Increased lean body mass
Using creatine has been shown to increase lean body mass. What is “lean body mass”? It’s the portion of your body that isn’t fat, primarily muscular tissue. Creatine enhances the mass of your muscles.
You can add over 2 pounds in a week, then you can speculate that it’s not all muscular tissue. Studies have demonstrated that initially nearly all of the increase is water retention. Creatine draws water into your muscle. Your muscles get larger and weigh more just because they have more water.
But creatine likewise increases the pace of hypertrophy (muscular tissue growth), thus over a period of time you gain more actual muscular tissue, not only water. Investigation has shown that using creatine increases the activity of “satellite cells” in the muscular tissue. These cells help repair muscles, so increased action means muscles are repaired more quickly.
Increased strength
Short term usage of creatine has been demonstrated to increase maximal power in “anaerobic high-intensity repetitive work”. Here’s a few activities that suit that description:
-Any variety of sprint, whether it’s running, cycling, swimming, rowing, etc.
-Gymnastics
-MMA, boxing, etc.
-Baseball
-Powerlifting, or Olympic weighlifting
-American Football
-Track events, like high jump, long jump, javelin, discus, etc.
-Tennis
There’s a many more, but you get the idea. Any activity where you do some tough work for a abbreviated time period will profit from creatine. Studies have demonstrated gains in performance of 5 to 15% in multiple repetition work, and gains of 1 to 5% in single repetition work. So you will witness more benefit when performing multiple sprints, versus a single sprint. Of course, a 1 to 5% enhancement is nothing to scoff at either.
My opinion is that augmented performance in repetitive work plays a part in building more muscular tissue. If you move heavier weights or do more repetitions, you’re increasing the intensity level of your workout. More intensity means more stimulus for muscle growth. Here’s a video which outlines some of the benefits of creatine.
Here’s What You Shouldn’t anticipate
Don’t anticipate instant results. You may acquire water weight almost right away, but building muscle will take a while.
Do not anticipate results without activity. If you’re not doing some form of “anaerobic high-intensity repetitive work”, like the ones described above, do not bother taking creatine.
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