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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

#101

Post by svnt »

aNapierkowski wrote: post #81
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 I took a look at the methodology here, it seemed like this should have been accounted for in the plan though maybe I'm missing something. That said this is just one study and will play into meta-analyses at some point which are more interesting After the 7-day wash-in, both groups followed the same RT program that comprising 3 full-body sessions a week for 12 weeks (Supplementary Materials, Table S1). All sessio…

Their methodology does seem to potentially capture what is at question here, by use of perceived exertion to adjust weight for repetition maximums.

It is possible it doesn’t capture everything, because they don’t say anything here about setting the initial load, or adjusting the load up for low perceived exertion, only down for high perceived exertion.

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

#102

Post by ActivePattern »

dgfitz wrote: post #27
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 has been known for ~15 years. I'm not sure what this study thought it was debunking.

If you read the study, you can see that they controlled for training intensity. All exercises were done to repetition maximum.

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

#103

Post by jmull »

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?

I wouldn't necessarily assume people's interest in science is limited to what meta analyses tell us.

A single study probably can't answer the high-level questions (like, "does creatine help build muscle?") but can nevertheless be pretty interesting to read and discuss. (Personally, I found this discussion interesting, and I don't care about the high-level question at all.)

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

#104

Post by Nifty3929 »

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...

From the actual study:

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/6/10812.3.4. Resistance Training Program

After the 7-day wash-in, both groups followed the same RT program that comprising 3 full-body sessions a week for 12 weeks (Supplementary Materials, Table S1). All sessions were supervised by tertiary qualified exercise physiologists and commenced with a standardised warm-up of dynamic flexibility exercises. Each session consisted of 5 exercises: 2 compound movements each for the upper and lower body, and 1 isolation movement for the upper body. Four sets were prescribed for all movements to ensure an adequate weekly training volume for hypertrophy [32]. Training intensities were 6 to 12 repetition maximums (RM) with 60 and 120 s of rest between sets and exercises, respectively. To adhere to the prescribed RM, an individual’s rating of perceived exertion (RPE) on a Likert scale of 1–10 was recorded. RPE corresponds to the number of repetitions an individual perceives they will be able to perform after the set is complete, where an RPE 5 equates to 5 reps more, RPE 6 is 4 reps more, RPE 7 is 3 reps more, and so on [33]. When a RPE of 8 or lower was recorded, the external load (kg) was adjusted on successive sets to ensure that subjects achieved the target RM. The RM method was used to ensure that training intensities were relative to the individual’s abilities while also standardising the training intensity across all participants [34].

I'm not quite sure this is clear enough for me, though it does somehow suggest that they were pushing the participants to do as much as they could. But like I say, unclear.

Small N as well - only a few dozen people.

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

#105

Post by ActivePattern »

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...

The study seems to have controlled for training intensity -- all exercises were done to repetition maximum.

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

#106

Post by meltyness »

> Participants completed a 3-day food log for the 3 days prior to each assessment (baseline, post seven-day wash-in phase, and post 12-week RT intervention) to provide an estimate of their typical total kilocalorie (kcal/day) and macronutrient (g/day of carbohydrate, fat, and protein) intake

That's a lot of extrapolation, Marmite-flavored protein powder, no doubt?

> that comprising 3 full-body sessions a week for 12 weeks (Supplementary Materials, Table S1) [Table S1 describes 3 different bro-splits, comprised of 45 different assistance exercises and no planned progression in intensity, excepting "To failure"]

Ah yes, I see they've confused resistance exercise with resistance training, indeed a mistake.

Granted, it does seem like a fine time to avoid "fitness powders" in light of "The Rhisotope Project" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40819617

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

#108

Post by ActivePattern »

lowqualityworld wrote: post #44
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 repor…

Wouldn't the extra stamina have been rewarded, assuming creatine allowed you to perform extra repetitions? All exercises were done to repetition maximum.

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

#109

Post by n4r9 »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #104
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...

From the actual study: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/6/10812.3.4 . Resistance Training Program After the 7-day wash-in, both groups followed the same RT program that comprising 3 full-body sessions a week for 12 weeks (Supplementary Materials, Table S1). All sessions were supervised by tertiary qualified exercise physiologists and commenced with a standardised warm-up of dynamic flexibility exercises. Each sessio…

> it does somehow suggest that they were pushing the participants to do as much as they could

I have the same impression. Possibly it could be made less subjective by literally repping to failure, but I'd guess that has potential ethical implications.

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

#110

Post by deadbabe »

SuperNinKenDo wrote: post #92
deadbabe wrote: post #83

There are cognitive benefits to creatine, so don’t stop taking it. Especially if you’re old as fuck (50+, etc)

Or if you're vegetarian. I didn't even know about the cognitive benefits until I felt them so strongly that I did a search to see if it was a common thing people experienced.

What did you do experience?
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