Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
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Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#2Over the years through my own involvement in sports and physically demaning jobs with trying a lot of different supplementation, I've come to the conclusion that most (if not all) supplements provide little to no value beyond a good diet. If they do, they're either illigal as non-perscription and/or require regular physician monitoring use correctly.
Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#3This sort of study is important, given how highly taken creatine is. I will highlight a part that I think may be especially relevant:
> “The people taking the creatine supplement saw changes before they even started exercising, which leads us to believe that it wasn’t actual real muscle growth, but potentially fluid retention,” Dr Hagstrom said.
I think this is well-known, right? People take creatine specifically because it increases water retention in muscles, making them look slightly bigger. I'm not sure if many people think it will help build muscles and strength directly in the way "TRT" does, but maybe I'm wrong!
My understanding of the conventional wisdom:
- Caffeine and other uppers work from a motivational perspective during workouts
- "TRT" provides massive gains, and nasty side effects
- Creatine makes your muscles look slightly bigger
- Nothing else worksRe: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#4The way I understood it creatine by itself doesn't promote muscle gain all that much. It's the fact that you can potentially do one to three more reps which does. But that still means you have to do the reps.
https://leangains.com/supplements-you-might-actually-find-us...
Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#5I've been lifting five to six days a week since 2012, with some de-loading periods between, and have had my nutrition and sleep locked in for the majority of that time. Anecdotal of course, but I will still sit here and say that creatine is the only supplement that has actually worked over all those years - in fact, it's the only one I currently take.
I recover so much better when on roughly 5mg of Creatine for an extended period of time versus when I am not taking any. I also very clearly notice added water weight. That recovery leads to better training sessions which in turn leads to increased muscle and strength.
The difference in water retention and recovery is measurable whether doing a PPL or something like Tactical Barbell blocks.. call me crazy.
EDIT: 5g not 5mg
Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#6I've had the pleasure of working with a personal trainer who has a broad educational training background. She emphasized that creatine "kind of helped" but it was really only that last mile 5% benefit. And the effect would mostly be long-term (1-2 years of dedicated training). She just told me to focus on trying to get 1 gram of high quality protein daily for pound of body weight.
This study is just one study, but to me just highlights her same observation even more.
Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#7I don’t understand the trend of individual studies making it to the top of HN, while metaanalyses are ignored, despite examining 10s or 100s of such individual studies in aggregate to reduce noise.
There are we-are-human reasons, but are there any logical reasons?
Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#8This sort of study is important, given how highly taken creatine is. I will highlight a part that I think may be especially relevant: > “The people taking the creatine supplement saw changes before they even started exercising, which leads us to believe that it wasn’t actual real muscle growth, but potentially fluid retention,” Dr Hagstrom said. I think this is well-known, right? People take creatine specifically bec…
It also helps with short term energy so maximum performance over a 30-90 second window increases, which fits many sports. It’s less useful for endurance athletes or 1 rep max.
“By taking a creatine supplement, such as creatine monohydrate, you can change the amount of phosphocreatine and creatine in your muscles. The extra creatine can help your muscles make more ATP faster as you use it to fuel your cells during high-intensity exercise.
One reason your body builds more lean muscle tissue when you take creatine is that your muscles will hold more water. The pressure from the water in your cells causes your muscles to swell. This water and swelling can also make cells grow.” https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/creatine
On average it also improves cognitive function slightly etc, but like most supplements individual results vary. “especially as you get older. But studies have not shown a strong effect.”
Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#9This sort of study is important, given how highly taken creatine is. I will highlight a part that I think may be especially relevant: > “The people taking the creatine supplement saw changes before they even started exercising, which leads us to believe that it wasn’t actual real muscle growth, but potentially fluid retention,” Dr Hagstrom said. I think this is well-known, right? People take creatine specifically bec…
Yes, it's well-known. It's also the reason people take it.
Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds
#10The way I understood it creatine by itself doesn't promote muscle gain all that much. It's the fact that you can potentially do one to three more reps which does. But that still means you have to do the reps. https://leangains.com/supplements-you-might-actually-find-us...
Exactly. As ATP is broken down to adenosine and phosphate to produce energy, creatine re-phosphorolates adenosine.
So it gives you more energy at molecular level. But as you said, you have to actually use that energy.