Creatine

You've seen those sick bodybuilders chugging down 10-20 grams of creatine. Is it worth it? According to scientists at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, at 0.1 grams per kilogram of bodyweight, male athletes excreted 46% of the ingested creatine within 24 hours. For a 220 pound lifter, this means that if he consumes 10g of creatine, 46%, or 4.6g of creatine, is wasted. In another study performed at the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University, scientists confirmed that lower doses of creatine monohydrate (5g/day) are effective, and that results can even be achieved without a loading phase.

Got that off a bodybuilding site... Any truth to this..? Is 5g a day enough?








(Enter lame comment here)

yeah 5g is perfect. depending on your size. if youre a big dude you can take 10mg a day. but 5-7g is a perfect dose

I've found a few different ratios for consuming creatine and they all come to roughly the same dosage - 5g. that's all you need.

Personally, I've gone up to 30g creatine per day in divided doses and didn't experience any benefit over 5g. What I did experience however is being very very thirsty, no matter how much water I drank and that was over 6 litres.

As for loading, there's evidence that suggests 2 days at 20g is enough then followed by the maintenance dosage of 5g is enough. I've only loaded once or twice, the benefit was minimal for me.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Much appreciated.

(Enter lame comment here)

This comes from the Carb Back Loading book - and this particular protocol refers to 60g a day of creatine. So completely on the opposite end of the spectrum, but for different reasons than typical with creatine.

"a recent discovery about creatine, which, instead of being an anabolic effect, is anticatabolic. Creatine may block myostatin production, which can allow significant growth because myostatin is a powerful antigrowth factor 4. Knock out an antigrowth factor and, consequently, trigger new growth. Many hormones signal growth as levels increase, myostatin,
however stops muscular growth and cell differentiation when levels are high. Myostatin is one of the key factors that limit the size of skeletal muscle and training lowers the production of myostatin thus allowing muscular hypertrophy 5."

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