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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

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is, supplements will mostly only help you shore up deficiencies in your diet and generally won't do it as effectively as eating right. No matter how much supplementation you do, you can't out-run a bad diet.

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Much greater mental clarity and concentration. At the time I had a lot of brainfog, and while creatine didn't fix it, it was the difference between seeing two feet in front of me vs. 10 feet in front of me.

Other effects too, like better recall, but stuff like that's hard to untangle from those first two.

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

#173
Creatine is quite literally the most researched supplement in the world. It's safe, effective, and recommended by both gym rats and doctors in any field. It's naturally occurring in many foods.

It's the only supplement that's actually given insanely effective results for my own anecdotal use.

Any study that says otherwise I'm just going to assume is complete BS. Normally I'd give something a chance and read their evidence, but this is practically up there with someone trying to argue the world is flat for me.

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

#174
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Repping to failure has potential ethical implications?

Reps to failure can be done pretty darn safely with machines and incredibly low risk of injury if done on the higher rep ranges (say 20 per set). You’re not going to get rid or risk of injury but in order to even do this study, my opinion is you have to be at a normal level of injury risk or the study is pretty much flawed by design.

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

#175
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Repping to failure has potential ethical implications? Reps to failure can be done pretty darn safely with machines and incredibly low risk of injury if done on the higher rep ranges (say 20 per set). You’re not going to get rid or risk of injury but in order to even do this study, my opinion is you have to be at a normal level of injury risk or the study is pretty much flawed by design.

Whilst safer in the short term, 20-rep machine sets are not a great way to build muscle. Perhaps something in the middle like a smith machine is best.

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

#177
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~160lb, 30yo. I know it's nothing special on the world stage but it's irrelevant because everyone is on gear these days and I've never even taken creatine (got scared about hair loss, lol). I also used to rep out both dips and chinups with 60kg of weight attached which tended to attract attention. But no matter what I did I never felt like I needed to take days off. I remember the DOMS in the very early days of the g…

I think you just plateaued which is normal for everyone and just ended up staying there. Most likely a combination of not eating enough and not really pushing to failure to get past it. If you're repping things with no problem, you're at the your current "optimal" level so yeah, you won't feel like you need to recover. Like in cardio, I could rip out a half-marathon at a 8:00m pace and feel fine the next day, but try…

I did get fit and remain so. But I realised chasing higher numbers wasn't for me. I find the refusal to accept the natty limit in lifting weird. I'm stronger than almost everyone and I've proved this with real life useful work like moving house all by myself. Eventually you realise the lifting is just a sport and I don't like sports.

I find the whole thing super fake now. People eating 5 chickens a week that were slaughtered for them in horrible conditions. Burning fossil fuels to move their obese body to the gym every day to go do pretend work in air conditioned boxes. Tell themselves BMI is bullshit and doesn't work for extremely muscular outliers like them and they're just "bulking" and that somehow eating 3000+ calories a day is good for them. Oh and I guess tell themselves that not being able to walk after a workout is somehow good for them.

Nowadays I walk, run and cycle outside, do calisthenics at home, do intermittent fasting every single day, eat delicious food, remain shredded, take no supplements and still have my hair.

Gyms are good for adults to train from the general blob like form we all seem to regress to after childhood into the form they always should have been. I think the ideal would be just maintaining childhood strength all the way into adulthood, so just doing exercise basically. Gyms are only necessary because there are adults with so little functional strength that they'd injure themselves if they tried to do a single dip or lift a box.

Standard strength goals should be being able to walk 30km, 1000m ascent with a 10kg pack. Being able to cycle 100 miles. Being able to lift your own bodyweight from a dead hang. Being able to lift a 100kg box shaped load etc. Real strength.

I'm not saying nobody should do it for a sport, though. I love strongman (specifically World's Strongest Man). But you have to realise to compete there you need to be on copious amounts of gear, just like any other sport. You just have to be real with yourself about what your goals are.

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