Are you weight training on a regular basis and eating a healthy diet but still not building the muscle mass you had hoped for? Check out what Julia Derek, fitness trainer in NYC has to say about creatine. The following article was taken from her newsletter Fit and the City.  (Pic is of Julia)

Ask Julia: Does Creatine Work?

Q: I’m a 54-year-old male psychiatrist who works out regularly every week with medium to heavy weights. Most weeks I get in at least three one-hour strength workouts (with a day’s rest in between). We change the routine often to keep my muscles guessing. I have also changed my eating habits so that these days I eat a small meal every three hours instead of two or three bigger meals per day. According to my trainer, this is the best way to add muscle. I have certainly gained strength and definition, but I would like to become bigger. My friend suggested that I take creatine. Does creatine work?

A: Since it seems that you are doing everything possible to add size to your muscles, I think that your taking creatine is not a bad idea. Based on a variety of studies over the years, ingesting creatine is considered safe and does seem to work. The only side effect is weight gain from water retention in your muscles - and perhaps upset intestines (usually because the subject has taken more than the recommended dosage).
It appears that creatine does help your muscles to grow bigger. The reason for this is because ingesting creatine enables your musc les to work harder than normal and recover quicker. The increased workload thus results in bigger muscles. The following study (one of many similar I found) highlights this:

“Researchers compared the effects of creatine on body weight, body fat, bench press in eighteen male power-lifters, (average 27 years of age). All were preparing for a competition eight weeks away. The study was done for 26 days during the hypertrophy phase of the lifters periodized training. The experimental group consisted of nine subjects who were given a creatine/sugar drink combination, while the placebo group consisted of nine subjects that received only the sugar drink. The subjects initially ingested 20 gms/day for five days (five gram dose, four times per day) and then went to a maintenance dose of five gms/day for the last 21 days. The three RM bench press and Most-Reps-Performed (over five sets) were the methods used to assess strength changes; skinfolds and the Lifesize computer software (Nolds Sports Scientific, Sydney, Australia) were used to estimate Lean Body Mass changes.”

THE RESULTS

“Both groups improved their bench press. The creatine group improved strength performance by 8.9 kg (+/-) 3.3 kg and the placebo group increased by 2.5kg (+/-) 0 kg. This suggested that the resistance training program alone was effective in improving performance, however, the group who ingested the creatine had a better lifting performance. In addition, the creatine group was able to perform more repetitions (40 percent more) over the course of 5 sets than the placebo group (only seven percent more). This result alone suggested that creatine may have a strong influence on the body’s ability to recover more quickly during a workout and therefore allow the athlete to perform more work during the exercise session. Body mass (as measured by weight) did increase more in the creatine group, however, since no intra-muscular measurements (biopsies), cross-sectional area or body composition itself were done, the researchers believe that most of the body weight increase was likely to be fluid retention within the cells (cell swelling).”

Here are some recent guidelines on how to use creatine:

- use creatine monohydrate supplementation along with a sugar drink to facilitate loading (one needs to take almost twice as much creatine citrate to match the effects of monohydrate)
- adjust the dose according to your body weight (maintenance approx.100mg/kg)
- load for no more than one week (300mg/kg/day) and then go on to a maintenance cycle (100mg/kg/day)
- stop every month or so, to stimulate the body’s own homeostatic production of creatine
- take your full day of creatine intake in smaller amounts over the course of the day
- always ensure that you ingest your creatine immediately after your workout

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