creatine cycle help

[hunglow]

i just bought some creatine monohydrate and i was wondering how long you use it for. someone told me that you have to stop taking it after like a month because your body gets use to it

[Blindfaith]

Good thing you asked because you got some bad info on creatine.

Here is what you should do for your creatine cycle. You go 3 months on then 1 month off...and then start all over again.

For the first 2 weeks take in 20g per day...spliting that up into 2 10g servings. Take 10g before you workout and then 10g after.

Then for the next 10 weeks take in 10g/day right after you workout.

After the 12 weeks is done take one month off and start back on it again.

That is how you cycle creatine monohydrate.

Hope this helps!

Cheers.

[GetRipt]

Most of what I've read recommends cycling it. However, I came across this article recently;
http://www.ast-ss.com/dev/qa_search/...xt.asp?ID=2476
This site IS horribly biased in some ways, but most of the articles are very informative.

Originally posted by Blindfaith
Good thing you asked because you got some bad info on creatine.
Here is what you should do for your creatine cycle. You go 3 months on then 1 month off...and then start all over again.
For the first 2 weeks take in 20g per day...spliting that up into 2 10g servings. Take 10g before you workout and then 10g after.
Then for the next 10 weeks take in 10g/day right after you workout.
After the 12 weeks is done take one month off and start back on it again.
That is how you cycle creatine monohydrate.
Hope this helps!
Cheers.

A two week loading phase? You can saturate your cells in only five days at 20g/day. And it's most efficiently done with a number of small doses. No more than 5g per dose, with doses equally time-spaced throughout your waking hours. Once the cells are saturated any ingested creatine is pissed away. A maintenance dose of 10g is slight overkill, but better to have a little too much than not enough.

[Nainoa]

What worked best for me...

Take with powdered gatorade... It has Dextrose which helps for muscle storage...

I don't bother with a Loading Phase... Half the time if you put too much into your body, you just crap like a donkey, and it's wasted...

I take around 3grams at lunch in Dextrose gatorade... and 4 grams post workout in gatorade. And I'll get the same "Creatine Swell" in 7 days, that I would after 5 days of loading.
And I'll end up using 49 grams to get there in 7 rather than 100g to get there in 5.

I've never heard of loading for two weeks... That seems a bit over zealous to me!

Important things to note... Make sure you increase you water intake... Creatine can dehydrate you... When on Creatine I put a gallon and a half of water in per day.

Don't take Creatine and L-glutamine together... At least 3 hours between them, as they both use the same cell transporters.

Don't take Creatine with any caffine... Give at least 2-3 hours of space between creatine and any caffine...

If you are going to load... And you know that you're going to "Having a few Drinks" with Friends... Don't take the creatine... I went to a birthday party when I loaded for the first time... Ended up getting loaded at the party... I was not aware that such a level of dehydration could exist the next morning... And I powered down three tall glasses of water before bed!

Personally I find it works best to take creatine for 8-10 weeks... Then 6 weeks off...

Hope that helps

Nainoa

[GetRipt]

Originally posted by Nainoa
Don't take Creatine and L-glutamine together... At least 3 hours between them, as they both use the same cell transporters.

This has been dissproven. The cell membrane has dedicated entrance sites for creatine AND glutamine, so there's no competition, (as was originally thought), and in fact the new idea is that taking them together will induce greater cell volumizing effects than taking creatine alone.

[qball]

Originally posted by GetRipt
This has been dissproven. The cell membrane has dedicated entrance sites for creatine AND glutamine, so there's no competition, (as was originally thought), and in fact the new idea is that taking them together will induce greater cell volumizing effects than taking creatine alone.

I've always read you shouldn't take creatine and glutamine together. You got any articles to back this up? Could be interesting.

[Nainoa]

Well from personal experience, In the past when I was taking both... I got the best results than when I started taking Glutamine in the morning breakfast, and Creatine post-workout... When I was taking both of them together (Before I'd read about the cell membrane issue) I was starting to think one or the other was a hoax.

Granted... I don't take glutamine anymore... When I get to my cut in Early 2005, I'm going to drop the creatine, and take glutamine, as it does better in Hypo-caloric situations.

[GetRipt]

Originally posted by qball
I've always read you shouldn't take creatine and glutamine together. You got any articles to back this up? Could be interesting.

http://www.ast-ss.com/dev/qa_search/...ext.asp?ID=677
The article doesn't provide references, but the fact that they're going against what they originally said years ago, and that they don't recommend additional doses with the "breaking research", makes a believer out of me... at least on this particular topic.