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Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

unsw.edu.au

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Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#41

Post by DataDaoDe »

cratermoon wrote: post #16
laszlojamf wrote: post #4

The 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...

This is correct. There are two main biological activities involving creatine, a combination of amino acids: 1. it facilitates recycling of ADP back to ATP, obviously more ATP means more energy, meaning ability to do more reps 2. it acts as a pH buffer, countering the fatigue effects of lactic acid buildup. So no, taking creatine without doing the work probably won't make a difference (except to your wallet), but use…

Agreed. If memory serves, most studies have shown marginal effects ~ 5%, particularly for strength. The benefit of creatine it seems at least partially, is the marginal benefit of being able to squeeze out a few extra reps per week

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#42

Post by econ »

waynenilsen wrote: post #18

> Apparently healthy individuals (18 to 50 years), with a body mass index of ≤30 kg/m2 and *not meeting current physical activity guidelines* of at least 150 min of moderate-intensity exercise were included. I'm curious what the same study would say about athletes of various disciplines. It makes sense to me that creatine does not make a difference for these folks.

If they don't train, difference in what are they even on about?

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#43

Post by globular-toast »

adrian_b wrote: post #17

I do not understand why would anyone believe that creatine can influence muscle gains. Muscle gains require an adequate protein intake, but creatine has no relationship with that. Creatine, as phosphocreatine, provides energy storage for short-time anaerobic effort. After the available phosphocreatine is exhausted, only a lower power can be sustained, at the level that can be supported by the conversion of glucose in…

Steroids increase muscle growth despite having no relationship with adequate protein intake.

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#44

Post by lowqualityworld »

LostMyLogin wrote: post #5

I'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 ex…

I've had the exact same experience, it took a while for creatine to start truly having an effect but I could see the extra water retention in the mirror and feel it in the gym.

I think this study may have been too flawed to reach a strong conclusion.

> After the 7-day wash-in, both groups followed the same RT program that comprising 3 full-body sessions a week for 12 weeks...

> For all assessments, participants reported to the Exercise Physiology Research Lab (UNSW Sydney, Australia) at the same time of day between 8 h and 9 h following an 8-h fast which included refraining from all liquids except water...

So extra stamina isn't rewarded due to the same workout plan and conventional wisdom on insulin and its effect on muscle absorption of creatine is completely ignored due to the 8 hour fasting period.

This study seems to paint creatine as a magic muscle bullet where it seems to be common knowledge in the fitness community that it aids recovery and stamina. I have my doubts.

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#45

Post by econ »

iamacyborg wrote: post #23
chank wrote: post #2

Over 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.

There are plenty of well researched performance enhancers which are legal, for example beta-alanine for middle distance runners.

36 raw eggs per day seems the funny example here

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#46

Post by [deleted] »

epistasis wrote: post #38
rd11235 wrote: post #7

I 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?

If by "logical" you mean "practical" then the reason is that the study which cost a lot of money to do, the constituent studies that generate data, are more likely to get a press release, and that is how non-specialists learn about new studies. Logically, from the perspective of the university, being able to point out the result of spending a lot of money to contribute to human knowledge is important, so they publici…

[deleted]

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#47

Post by parthdesai »

laszlojamf wrote: post #4

The 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...

Yeah, that's also the case when people scoff at pro bodybuilders due to steroids. Steroids don't magically give you the gains, you still have to put the work in. You just get rewarded more, and quicker at cost of other side effects.

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#48

Post by smileysteve »

waynenilsen wrote: post #18

> Apparently healthy individuals (18 to 50 years), with a body mass index of ≤30 kg/m2 and *not meeting current physical activity guidelines* of at least 150 min of moderate-intensity exercise were included. I'm curious what the same study would say about athletes of various disciplines. It makes sense to me that creatine does not make a difference for these folks.

If (as in this study) the athletes stuck to their same level of resistance training (ie weight + reps) I would expect the study to hold with the exception of finely measured muscle teardown.

As other commenters have posted, the popular suggested use of creatine use it to either increase resistance (extra reps at a greater weight) or decrease downtime (lack of atp / lactic acid buildup that breaks down muscles)

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#49

Post by globular-toast »

LostMyLogin wrote: post #5

I'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 ex…

I've never really understood what people mean when they talk about recovery. Is this something you can feel? Or does it mean you couldn't lift the same weights the very next day or something? I lifted consistently for years, no supplements, 1RM around 65kg OHP, 115kg BP, 140kg squat, 200kg DL and apart from immediately after the gym I never felt like I needed to recover. Maybe my volume wasn't high enough? I was very much a 3x5 compound lifts then out kind of guy rather than spending hours in there doing 10 rep sets and accessories etc.

Re: Sports supplement creatine makes no difference to muscle gains, trial finds

#50

Post by Johanx64 »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #21
arresin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be rude but your anecdote (and all anecdotes like this on anything to do with health) is uninteresting and useless.

I support their anecdote. Any "supplements" that have significant effects are highly regulated and somewhat risky. Worrying about things that will make a 1-2% difference isn't worth the time, just workout one more rep.

> Just one more rep

It don't work like that.

The amount you can work out (at intensity) is limited by your recovery time.

Thus you take that "supplement" and can do one more rep, or go to gym extra time a week, especially if it comes to "regulated and risky" supplements, then you can do many, many more reps.

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