How much does creatine really help?
I googled and searched this, but only found 2 inconclusive threads and I wanted some more opinions. Some people say creatine monohydrate only helps maybe 5% which to me is nearly nothing, but others say it is helpful and very much worth taking,
I KNOW it is no magical steroid, but how much has it helped you make gains or increase strength when you started taking it? My experience was when I was taking a protein powder with creatine in it I could push harder and my strength was very much dependent on how hydrated I was, however I was making good bench gains every week until I ran out of powder and coincidentally? hit a bench plateau.
So is creatine really worth the money if you are pretty hard up? Or does it help so little that only elite lifters benefit from the little edge?
All the info on creatine you need
[QUOTE=Sbaker3;692976121]I googled and searched this, but only found 2 inconclusive threads and I wanted some more opinions. Some people say creatine monohydrate only helps maybe 5% which to me is nearly nothing, but others say it is helpful and very much worth taking,
I KNOW it is no magical steroid, but how much has it helped you make gains or increase strength when you started taking it? My experience was when I was taking a protein powder with creatine in it I could push harder and my strength was very much dependent on how hydrated I was, however I was making good bench gains every week until I ran out of powder and coincidentally? hit a bench plateau.
So is creatine really worth the money if you are pretty hard up? Or does it help so little that only elite lifters benefit from the little edge?[/QUOTE]
Ok so I’m only in hs but I’m taking an AP college course and studying nutrition and sports medicine and Creatine is by far the safest supplement on the market. I recommend using the monohydrate because the newer versions are still under testing. But it does depend on the person some people naturally have high creatine stores so they’ll get minimal to maybe even no effect of creatine. But some people may have lower creatine stores especially vegans or vegetarians which is why creatine is almost a must have in vegans and vegetarians bc they have very low creatine stores so my advice is to try it following a load protocol and cycle it and see what happens. You won’t see immediate results like anything else I say do at least 2-3 cycles and see if you make progress. It will mostly help with muscle endurance which will help with hypertrohpy work and really producing that extra energy you need to finsih those last two reps. So yes it will make a difference in size and strength but it’s completely subjective to the person and there body. So if you complete 2 cycles and no avail I say either try a different brand (sometimes different brands will have different results idk why but I’ve experienced it first hand) or just don’t use creatine at all. But if you get moderate results I recommend it anyways because it’s always nice to have and it’s fairly cheap for what your getting. But as stated by others your diet must be in check and you must drink a lot of water I’d say anywhere from 12-18 water bottles a day or a gallon. I heard it will also help produce more quality and fuller muscle as in it will help make your muscles harder if that makes sense bc it will be full of water and the muscle will be of better quality. But either way it’s all a trial and error process. Just lien whey protein one brand may work or the Isolate may work better for you etc. I used to use BSN Syntha 6 and I switched to ON and I made some serious gains size wise and strength wise as not nothing astronomical but every little detail counts. So trial and error is the key to creatine just liek with whey personally Hydrowhey is the best for me because I get the best effects and results so trial and error is key. Also like stated by another user figure out your maintainence calories and I say add anywhere form 200-400calories to your maintence and see if you start to gain weight I currently doubled my maintenance calories but that’s because I’m still young and my metabolsim burns through everything I eat so that as well is trial and error. Figure out how many calories it takes for you to gain anywhere from .5lb a week to 1lb but .5lbs a week would be better if your looking for lean gains and creatine will add extra weight as well so make sure to take that into account. Hope I was able to help you in some way.
