How Creatine Works?
June 17 2008
How Creatine Monohydrate works? Out of the thousands of supplements out there, creatine and protein are the only two which has been scientifically proven to work ti increase muscle mass growth and strength.
What was the purpose of the creatine study?
The mechanism by which creatine helps in improving strength is pretty clear; however, the effects of creatine in increasing muscle growth/mass and its underlying mechanisms are still questioned. Hence the study was conducted to find out how creatine helps in increasing muscle mass.
What do we know & do not know about creatine?
Water Retention: Creatine has shown to pull water into the muscle which obviously makes the muscle look bigger. This unique ability of creatine seems to have convinced many that the increase in muscle mass with creatine intake is simply due to water retention.
Muscle Fiber Growth: Nonetheless, studies have clearly shown a significant increase in actual muscle cross sectional (across all fiber types) with creatine intake plus strength training.
This creatine study not only shows an increase in fiber cross sectional area but also for the first time reveals an important mechanism behind this increase in muscle mass with creatine intake.
What is that unique mechanism of Creatine?
Understanding this unique mechanism will also reveal why I picked this study or why creatine is rightly called the “poor man’s steroid”.
Unique Creatine Mechanism: Unlike other cells in the body, muscle cells (or muscle fibers) are multinucleated. Considering how a muscle cell is way larger and complex than the rest of the cells in the body, it makes a lot of sense to have more than one nuclei to control the complex tasks in the muscle.
For instance, if your favorite restaurant was a muscle and the cooks the nuclei, it’s pretty safe to say that the number of cooks sets the limit to the size of the restaurant. Similarly (or somewhat), the size of your muscle is ultimately limited by the number of nuclei you have in your muscle.
Simply put, you cannot grow bigger muscles without additional nuclei to take care of the extra muscle.So where do we get these nuclei from?
Figure: A muscle fiber with nuclei shown in blue and satellite cell shown in red.
These muscle nuclei sprouts from specialized cells around the muscle called satellite cells. So any increase in satellite cells means some of these cells could be “blossoming” into new nuclei.
Anabolic steroids have clearly shown to increase the number of satellite cells and muscle nuclei even without any strength training stimulus to facilitate the addition of nuclei. Now, guess what happens when you combine steroids with training.
What were the results of the Creatine study?
- Creatine intake along with training was shown to cause a substantial increase in the number of satellite cells and myonuclei compared to strength training alone and strength training with protein intake.
- Further, creatine intake with resistance training showed the greatest increase in muscle fiber size compared to other groups.
What was the creatine dosage?
- Loading Phase: Creatine monohydrate loading (4 times a day) for 7 days.
- Maintenance Phase:
creatine (6gms) was supplemented once everyday with carbohydrates (14 gms) for 15 weeks.
Anyhow, to keep a long story short, creatine works in increasing muscle mass, and it works really well too!
Reference
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| Sat March 21, 2009 
This is a great site, thanks. My question regarding creatine monohydrate; is it subject to your protein conclusions on effectiveness as to when it is taken with regards to your workout?
I ask because I typically take it in the morning with my oatmeal and work out in the evening after work.
Regarding your protein intake article. You seem to overstate the protein recommended amounts in comparison to other educational studies I have read, and even over your own resource references. Is excess protein stored as fat? Shouldn’t that be the cutoff point which others say is ~.7 grams per pound for an average male that exercises frequently, but is not an elite athlete?
Double the RDA amount
Anoop | Sat March 21, 2009 
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the comment.
Regarding your creatine question, there was one or two studies which showed increase creatine uptake if taken around your workouts. Bit I don’t think it will make a noticeable difference.
Excess protein could be stored as fat if you are in a hyper caloric state. Regarding the high protein, the whole article was all about why “high protein” is better. Do you have anything specific about the issues I raised in that article?
| Thu April 09, 2009 
Cycling creatine usage.
Is there any seance to make a break of creatine use from time to time? Or I can use it constantly?
Thanks, Anoop.
Anoop | Sat April 11, 2009
Hi Anatoly,
I haven’t come across any studies which show any benefit to cycling creatine.
And physiologically speaking, there are no receptors involved in creatine uoptake to suspect an agonist-induced receptor desensitization. One reason why you have to increase dosage or cycle thermogenics (or other drugs which is receptor mediated) is because the receptors get desensitized because of all the stimulation.
If creatine need to be cycled, it makes a case for cycling protein too. But I don’t see a good reason. Have you felt anything different with cycling creatine?
| Sun April 12, 2009
I use creatine in my first time, so I can’t say nothing. I just saw some articles on creatine usage that recommends cycling.
Thanks, Anoop
| Thu April 30, 2009 
so, would you reccomend creatine to a 16-year-old who has only been weightlifting for about a year?
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