Creatine during Winter/Spring Track Season. Good or bad?

[TheSnowbro]

Sup guys. So I'm 17, 157 lbs, and a varsity sprinter for my high school's Track team. I do the 55m dash and 4x200m relay in winter. 4x100m, 4x200m, and 200m dash in the spring.
I've been looking up what creatine is and such, and I have my basis on that. But my main question is; will creatine help me with my sprints and will it put some size on me?
What type of creatine or brand is best for putting on weight that won't slow me down as much (less water weight)?
Should I take it during the season? Or just off season? Or both?
I just want to be bigger and more powerful with a muscular physique, so is this what I need?
Thanks!

[jshort145]

I compete in college (although throws not sprints) and as long as you drink plenty of water and keep exercising you won't bloat

[krakkerz]

Sup guys. So I'm 17, 157 lbs, and a varsity sprinter for my high school's Track team. I do the 55m dash and 4x200m relay in winter. 4x100m, 4x200m, and 200m dash in the spring.
I've been looking up what creatine is and such, and I have my basis on that. But my main question is; will creatine help me with my sprints and will it put some size on me?
What type of creatine or brand is best for putting on weight that won't slow me down as much (less water weight)?
Should I take it during the season? Or just off season? Or both?
I just want to be bigger and more powerful with a muscular physique, so is this what I need?
Thanks!

The only creatine you need to use is creatine monohydrate. The others are, at best, unproven and, worst, bunk.

Relax on the loading and you'll have less water retention. Keep your loading phase short ( 7-10 days) and light (20 or so grams per day) to minimize boat. It will take longer to get to saturation, though.

Creatine should help with your strength endurance and perhaps with speed endurance as well as the weight gain you're looking for.

[The Running Man]

I posted on this a little while ago: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...post1088168393

While creatine is undoubtedly effective in a general sense, its usefulness in trained sprinters is debatable. Sprinting is a complex activity that involves many moving parts. Changing muscle leverage points, body weight, muscle tone, etc, can potentially have a negative effect on performance.

[AntoineFitness]

In your stage of development your nutrition and training programme is going to be more influential than whether you take creatine or not.

[ecto185]

Before I give my own opinion ill explain what my understanding creatine is.

When we lift the body uses a energy pathway known as the ATP-PC cycle. To keep it simple.
ATP - adenosine triphosphate (triple phosphate)
PC - phosphocreatine (phosphate and creatine binded)
ADP - adenosine diphosphate (double phosphate)
Pi - phosphate

The body has stores of ATP and PC

To get energy the body breaks down ATP. This creates ADP and now 1 free phosphate (pi).

When ATP runs out you have a bunch if ADP floating around.

The body then uses a process to break down its stores of PC, this breakdown creates creatine and a free pi and the energy released binds the now free pi with ADP to create ATP again this continuing the cycle.

What creatine does is it allows the body to create and store more PC which will help cycle and refuel hence you get slightly more ATP hence energy.

So do you need creatine supplements? Not really purely because we get it from food and our body produces all we need, it does offer some additional energy though so arguably it will allow you to maybe hit your goals a little sooner than if you didn't take it.

For running particularly, multiple sprinting or cycling efforts where we are doing short burst of exercise repeatedly, the ATP-PC cycle is the primary source of energy, for a few efforts of 10-12 seconds the body usually has more than enough to supply you, so for these sports a creatine supplement may not be a beneficial option for single efforts but for multiple efforts over and over it might help keep the intensity up longer.

So the decision is up to you, if and how you use it. I could see more use for it off season when you're doing many many sprints over and over, it in theory should help you keep the intensity up and allow you to work a little harder therefore getting more results from training, for in season when you're not doing tonne and tonnes of sprints over and over you probably don't need the extra load of creatine if your diet is in check and you definitely don't need the extra water weight on competition day.

Will it make you a better runner no, you still need to get diet in check and running techniques and all those skills right, what it may do is help you workout a little longer or at a slightly higher intensity. It wont give you any magic results.

Just my complete unprofessional/unqualified understanding and opinion on the topic, take what you will from my post at your own risk.