Last Updated on March 10, 2010 by Jimson Lee
I discussed Creatine in an earlier post and focused on the loading phase of creatine, emphasizing on using your Lean Body Mass to calculate dosages.
The differences between Liquid Creatine vs Creatine Powders was also discussed.
One can browse any supplement section, whether it’s an online web site or health food store, and the comparison is similar to the cold cereal section at Safeway… too many choices!
Other than brand names and costs, Creatine & Creatine mixtures can be divided into 3 groups:
- plain Creatine
- Creatine/Glutamine and Creatine/Glutamine/Taurine mixtures
- Creatine/Ribose mixtures
Creatine
Creatine is a natural by-product of liver, kidney, and pancreas metabolism. It helps recycle the muscle’s ultimate energy source, ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP is the molecule that releases the energy for contraction of muscles. By giving off its energy through its high-energy phosphate bond, ATP is reduced to ADP. The problem is that the amount of ATP that is stored in our cells is limited. Creatine supplements results in raised creatine-phosphate in the muscle.
Creatine Phosphate may also reduce exercise fatigue since it absorbs the hydrogen ions that dissociate from lactic acid. By reducing this acidity, subjects may experience less acid-associated pain (the “burn” associated with 400m!) and delay the onset of fatigue.
95% of the creatine found in your body is stored inside your muscle cells and used for energy. By taking creatine monohydrate, your muscles become saturated with creatine. As your body retains extra creatine, your muscle cells contain more water (hence the reason to drink a lot of water!!!!). This process is called cell volumizing and it allows your muscles to swell, but for a short term.
The best absorbed form of creatine is the creatine monohydrate. It is recommended that creatine is mixed in fruit juice to aid in absorption.
Creatine/Glutamine and Creatine/Glutamine/Taurine mixtures
The Crea-Glutide label reads: “
If creatine and glutamine are supplemented together, then glutamine can pick up where creatine “leaves off” signaling the growth and repair process.
Supplementing glutamine with creatine enhances muscle building. But creatine combined with glutamine-peptide (taurine) is reportedly better. Studies show taurine has potent insulin-like benefits that can significantly enhance creatine uptake and retention in muscles (similar to fruit juice).
Glutamine-peptide is far superior to regular (free-from) glutamine. As a small peptide, glutamine-peptide is more rapidly and efficiently absorbed. In addition, peptide-bonded amino acids are the optimal source of amino acids for building muscle, and provide greater nitrogen retention and protein synthesis.
Creatine/Ribose mixtures (for pre-workouts and during workouts)
Again, another variation of the above. Where Creatine help replace the lost Phosphate to recreate the ATP from ADP, D-Ribose is an actual building block of ATP. In an ATP molecule, there’s a base called adenine, a ribose, and a phosphate chain. Without Ribose, you can’t make ATP at all. Basically, both helps recycle ADP to create ATP molecules.
I hope I clarified the differences on your next shopping trip!
If you want an online health and fitness center that puts together the whole picture of sports nutrition, I can recommend one that’s good. They offer support from experts in the field on all aspects of performance nutrition, including creatine plus glutamine supplements. This website gives you the dosage and frequency for taking their supplements with the ingredients stated as they appear on the label of the supplement so there is no mistaking how it should be taken. Not only that but they are able to tell you the best times in your workout routine to actually take your supplements. Plus how to vary your dosages on your days off. There are also volumes of free content about fitness in general as well as hundreds of exercises posted with computer modeling. This website can walk you through the maze of information and products available on the market today and help you meet your individual fitness goals. They also offers other fitness products that may be taken in combination with their creatine plus glutamine for even more dramatic effects. It’s worth a look.
No doubt that it helps massively for muscle recovery, but the key is really in knowing when to take it and how much to take. I think the supplement industry has lost their minds because they will do anything to sell products. they need to take responsibility in educating people better.
I have been taking creatine for some time now. I have to really say it seems to be helping on recovery time as well as looking ripped while working out and shortly afterwards. I think there are far better products out there though.
Great article! Thanks for posting this
To know more about muscle recovery, you can read the article on this site.
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/2009/09/the-truth-about-muscle-recovery-time-short-version/
Working out regularly and hard leaves me in a constant search for low fat sources of quality creatine and vitamin supplements. After having tried numerous powders and stacks, I finally decided to try the Dr Max Powers Anabolic Stack after doing research about the stack and its ingreidents.
It seems to give me what I was looking for. I take it an hour before workouts and seem to recover much faster with no muscle soreness and more strength and energy the next day. Plus its made me huge. The research I did showed that the creatine included in the Dr Max Powers stack is the most efficient for body building. I recommend it.