Creatine for Performance & Strength.

Creatine is one of the most researched and effective supplements for increasing strength, power, and muscle growth. Learn what creatine is, how it works, the best dosage, and whether you really need a loading phase.

What Is Creatine?

Creatine is a naturally-occurring compound synthesised by the body (primarily in the liver, kidneys and pancreas) from the amino acids arginine, glycine and methionine.

Creatine is also found in animal-based foods. There are no plant-based creatine food sources, however, creatine supplements can be made synthetically in a lab with many vegan-creatine options.

In our body, creatine is stored as phosphocreatine by combining creatine with a high-energy phosphate group.

It’s stored mainly in skeletal muscle (as creatine + phosphocreatine) and also in smaller amounts in the brain, heart and other tissues.

Its core role: during high-intensity, short-duration efforts (e.g., heavy lifts, explosive reps, sprints), phosphocreatine helps regenerate ATP (adenosine triphosphate) - the “energy currency” of muscle contraction.

Creatine helps to regenerate ATP by donating its phosphate group to ADP (adenosine-diphosphate), creating ATP.

*Adenosine-triphosphate has 3 phosphate groups.
‘Tri’ = 3.
‘Triphosphate = 3 phosphate. 

Adenosine-diphosphate has 2 phosphate groups.
‘Di’ = 2.
‘Diphosphate = 2 phosphate. 

So in summary: for power/strength work, creatine acts like a buffer or reserve to support high work output and thereby supports training quality, volume and adaptation.

What Are Its Performance Benefits?

Creatine supplementation has shown to increase strength and power output during resistance exercise by increasing muscle creatine stores.

When creatine supplementation is combined with resistance training, it can also increase lean mass.
(which, if you think about it, when creatine allows you to increase your strength and power output → you can push harder and get slightly more out of each training session → more muscle adaptations → increased lean mass). 

There’s a lot of recent research on creatine for cognitive performance and mental health, however, this is ongoing.

Some of the research does suggest that creatine can reduce mental fatigue - particularly in the context of highly stressful situations with sleep deprivation or exercise to exhaustion. 

Are There Any Drawbacks?

Creatine causes an increase in fluid retention which can impact those of you needing to make weight or fit into a weight class. Whilst creatine supplementation has repeatedly shown to be safe in females and males, weight can rapidly increase 1-2kg (sometimes more) from supplementation.

Over time, weight gain can occur due to new muscle tissue, contributing to lean body mass weight gain - but this tends to happen over longer periods of time.

Weight gain from fluid retention can be managed by ceasing creatine supplementation before weight-cuts to the amount of fluid being retained by creatine.

Some have reported digestive symptoms such as diarrhoea and bloating. This tends to occur due to the increases in total body water following supplementation.
Taking smaller doses and slowly building up to the recommended dose can help reduce the severity or risk of this occurring. 

How Much Should You Take?

You’ll often see the standard recommended dose is 3-5g per day for strength and performance benefits. 

For a lot of people, taking this dose daily is adequate. 

You can get more specific and work out your exact requirements for maximal benefits by using this equation: 

• 0.03g per kg of body weight = dose per day. 

For an 80kg individual → 0.03 x 80 = 2.4g per day. 

A small amount of creatine is broken down and excreted in your urine each day so the body requires consistent replenishment of 2-3g creatine per day to maintain your creatine stores (depending on your muscle mass).

For this reason, you should take creatine daily - even on rest days.

Do You Need to Do a ‘Loading Phase’?

A ‘loading phase’ is where you take a higher dose of creatine for 5-7 days to fully saturate your creatine stores.

Whilst you can do this, it’s not absolutely necessary.

If you supplement with the recommended dose consistently, you’ll fully saturate your creatine stores  over a longer period of time.

Muscle creatine  levels have been found to increase by 20% after 28 days of 3g per day (opposed to full saturation after 5-7 days after doing a loading phase).

If you wish to execute a loading phase, you can take 0.3g per kilogram of body weight for 5-7 days, or ~5 grams 4-5 x per day (20-25g total) for 5-7 days.