Protein For Muscles Creatine Information Creatine is a naturally occurring metabolite found in muscle tissue. It plays an important role in energy metabolism, and ATP reformulating. Muscle soreness, lactate build up, and fatigue are a direct result of depleted ATP store. Creatine replenishes ATP stores, thus prolonging time to fatigue.
Creatine also increases available instant energy, increases muscular strength, improves endurance, and reduces levels of metabolic byproducts such as ammonia (Ammonia is produced at high levels during intense exercise, ammonia is partially responsible for muscular fatigue). From our experience, Creatine supplementation results in significant muscle accumulation and increased muscular endurance in all of our clients. Weight gains from 4-14 pounds are common place with Creatine supplementation. Creatine loading via supplemental feeding can also offer the potential for the following.
Improved Athletic Performance: Maximizing the level of stored Creatine (20% or more) by supplemental ingestion of Creatine Monohydrate, has been shown to extend peak athletic performance for longer periods during short duration, high intensity exercise. Stockpiling Creatine shortens the time necessary for the body to generate replacement Creatine, thus significantly reducing muscle recovery time between short duration, high intensity activities. Increase Lean Muscle Mass: Inactive or dystrophic muscle (such as occurs as a result of injury) has by nature reduced levels of Creatine. Supplementation with Creatine Monohydrate permits dystrophic muscle to work harder during therapy and rebuild itself to its normal state. Correct Creatine Deficiencies: Disease or age-related Creatine deficiencies in the brain and skeletal muscle can be improved by the oral administration of Creatine Monohydrate, helping to restore a more active, normal lifestyle. How to Use Creatine Loading / Maintenance Phase: Take one to two scoops immediatley after workout, that’s it.
Creatine is best utilized when taken with a high glycemic substance such as (grape juice, Ultra fuel, ect.) Creatine Monohydrate – How Does It Really Works? Glenn Peden offered the following from Tom McCullough via the FEMUSCLE list on Tuesday, 13June1995. It was forwarded to me in response to my call for information on Creatine. Glenn: My Dad said he read mail today. Hope he can answer all of your questions.
I have been powerlifting for 13 years. I lift in the 242 lb. weight class. I am also ranked #9 in the USA.
If you have not tried the creatine monohydrate, get some. Just a quick explanation of its actions. I’m sure you know in order for a muscle to contract energy has to be released through the breakdown of ATP. In strength training you are in an anaerobic system.
The only way ATP is made is through anaerobic glycolisis. ATP is also reformed in the anaerobic system when chemical reactions take place in the muscle forcing the biproducts of ATP breakdown (ADP + Pi) back together so muscular contractions can take place again. Here is where the creatine comes in to play. The body has to hace creatine phosphate to force the ADP + Pi back together to reform ATP for energy. Creatine phosphate is formed when a chemical reaction breaks down creatine monohydrate, a natural dietary substance found in meats. The liver can synthesise creatine in small amounts but most of the creatine we digest is stored in the muscles and bones for future use.
However, especially in diets low in protein, we do have limited stores and it does take time to release the creatine stores. Red meat is the best source of creatine,however there is only about 1 g./lb. of meat. By taking creatine supplements you are supersaturating the body with creatine phosphate stores.
This will enable you to have more creatine available to produce more ATP at a faster rate. Thus, more energy is available per muscular contraction and ATP stores are restores quicker. This means for weight lifters more max strength and quicker recovery. The instructions for supplementation: 1st 5 days: 5g.4-6 x per day (this is the loading phase) after: 5-8g 30-45 min before workout/ 5g.
after workout. Creatine supplements will also cause, in most individuals intra cellular fluid retention. I have experienced 10 lb weight gains in first 2 wks. You should also start experiencing strength gains after the first week.
These gains wont be dramatic, like steriods, but you will see a difference. Try it , I think you will like it. Texas A&M experimented with it with a few players last season. This season they are putting the whole team on it because they got such positive results with the few guys who tried it. promote further gains in sprint performance (5-8%), as well as gains in strength (5-15%) and lean body mass (1-3%).
The only known side effect is increased body weight. More research is needed on individual differences in the response to creatine, periodic or cyclical use of creatine, side effects, and long-term effects on endurance. Reviewers’ comments Introduction Creatine is an amino acid, like the building blocks that make up proteins. Creatine in the form of phosphocreatine (creatine phosphate) is an important store of energy in muscle cells.
During intense exercise lasting around half a minute, phosphocreatine is broken down to creatine and phosphate, and the energy released is used to regenerate the primary source of energy, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Output power drops as phosphocreatine becomes depleted, because ATP cannot be regenerated fast enough to meet the demand of the exercise. It follows that a bigger store of phosphocreatine in muscle should reduce fatigue during sprinting. Extra creatine in the muscle may also increase the rate of regeneration of phosphocreatine following sprints, which should mean less fatigue with repeated bursts of activity in training or in many sport competitions. So much for the theory, but can you get a bigger store of creatine and phosphocreatine in muscle? Yes, and it does enhance sprint performance, especially repeated sprints. Extra creatine is therefore ergogenic, because it may help generate more power output during intense exercise.
In addition, long term creatine supplementation produces greater gains in strength and sprint performance and may increase lean body mass. In this article I’ll summarize the evidence for and against these claims. I’ll draw on about 42 refereed research papers and four academic reviews to make conclusions regarding the ergogenic value of creatine supplementation. In addition, I’ll provide 25 references to studies published in abstract form, which report the most recent preliminary findings on creatine supplementation.
Effects of Creatine Supplements on Muscle Creatine, Phosphocreatine, and ATP The daily turnover of creatine is about 2 g for a 70 kg person. About half of the daily needs of creatine are provided by the body synthesizing creatine from amino acids. The remaining daily need of creatine is obtained from the diet. Meat or fish are the best natural sources.
For example, there is about 1 g of creatine in 250 g (half a pound) of raw meat. Dietary supplementation with synthetic creatine is the primary way athletes “load” the muscle with creatine. Daily doses of 20 g of creatine for 5-7 days usually increase the total creatine content in muscle by 10-25%. About one-third of the extra creatine in muscle is in the form of phosphocreatine (Harris, 1992; Balsom et al., 1995).
Extra creatine in muscle does not appear to increase the resting concentration of ATP, but it appears to help maintain ATP concentrations during a single maximal effort sprint. It may also enhance the rate of ATP and phosphocreatine resynthesis following intense exercise (Greenhaff et al., 1993a; Balsom et al., 1995; Casey et al., 1996). There is some evidence that not all subjects respond to creatine supplementation. For example, one study reported that subjects who experienced less of a change in resting muscle creatine (*20 mmol/kg dry mass) did not appear to benefit from creatine supplementation (Greenhaff et al., 1994). However, more recent studies indicate that taking creatine with large amounts of glucose increases muscle creatine content by 10% more than when creatine is taken alone (Green et al., 1996a; Green et al., 1996b). Consequently, ingesting creatine with glucose may increase its ergogenic effect.
Effects on Performance Researchers first investigated the ergogenic effects of short-term creatine loading. In a typical study, a creatine dose of 5 g is given four times a day for five to seven days to ensure that muscle creatine increases. A control group is given a placebo (glucose or some other relatively inert substance) in a double-blind manner (neither the athletes nor the researchers doing the testing know who gets what until after the tests are performed). Most studies have shown that speed or power output in sprints–all-out bursts of activity lasting a few seconds to several minutes–is enhanced, typically by 5-8%.
Repetitive sprint performance is also enhanced when the rests between sprints don’t allow full recovery. In this case, total work output can be increased by 5-15%. There is also evidence that work performed during sets of multiple repetition strength tests may be enhanced by creatine supplementation, typically by 5-15%. In addition, one-repetition maximum strength and vertical-jump performance may also be increased with creatine supplementation, typically by 5-10%. The improvement in exercise performance has been correlated with the degree in which creatine is stored in the muscle following creatine supplementation, particularly in Type II muscle fibers (Casey et al., 1996).
Researchers have now turned their attention to longer-term creatine supplementation. In these studies, a week of creatine loading of up to 25 g per day is followed by up to three months of maintenance with reduced or similar dosages (2-25 g per day). Training continues as usual in a group given creatine and in a control group given a placebo. Greater gains are now seen in performance of single-effort sprints, repeated sprints, and strength (5-15%). Table 1 at the end of this article lists the references to positive effects of creatine on performance.
Theoretically, crea …
