I'm actually only using creatine in one of the article that you see on the screen right now. And then the other one I'm not. As you can see, creatine can help you enhance the size and the fullness of your muscles. And that's just a small portion of the benefits that you will experience by using creatine properly. And doing so doesn't have to be complicated. But there are many different types to choose from different recommendations for optimal dosages. And of course, there are still many myths as well as a lot of conflicting information about the best way to use creatine to build more muscle, improve performance, and to see better results. So I want to clear all that up for you today and provide you the best strategy for taking creatine to see faster progress. First, if you haven't used creatine before, you should know that it's not some unnatural synthetic compound made in the lab. It's already naturally produced by your body in your kidneys, liver and pancreas. And study after study shows that it's perfectly safe to use as a supplement. You already taken creatine naturally from a bunch of different foods like fish, red meat, pork, chicken and turkey. But even though you can get creatine from food, it's going to be really tough to get enough of it on a daily basis. When you cook meat, it loses at least a quarter of its creating content, which means you would have to eat anywhere from one to two pounds of meat per day to take in enough creatine to notice any kind of improvement in your physique or performance. So even though I always say that the vast majority of the supplements on the market are unnecessary and practically useless. creatine is one of the very few that has been proven to be beneficial and effective over and over again. For example, in a meta analysis we're creating was compared to over 250 supplements for muscle growth, it had the most significant impact for increasing muscle mass. There's also enough evidence to suggest that weightlifters that supplements creatine for three months tend to gain between two to six and a half extra pounds of lean body mass compared to those that train without it. But like I said, there are many forms of creating to choose from so which one will get you the best results and the fastest? Well, creatine monohydrate is the most popular form of creatine out there. But other popular options include creatine, hydrochloride, micronized, creatine, creatine, ethyl Ester and cracklin. These other options all promised to either increase absorbability or to reduce the side effects that are typically associated with using creatine monohydrate, which include things like bloating and stomach discomfort. Unfortunately, there isn't much research backing up these claims, though, even though there was a study on creatine HCl that found it to be 38 times more dissolvable in water than regular monohydrate. Simply dissolving better in water doesn't prove much about how well it's absorbed by the body. Nor does it prove that there are fewer side effects with micronized creatine even though it's made up of creating molecules that have already been divided up into smaller parts. Without supporting scientific evidence, simply drinking smaller creatine molecules does not prove that it's easier for your body to absorb. And a study on creatine ethyl Ester showed that even with its much higher price tag, it's still not as effective as regular creatine monohydrate. Finally, with cracklin, we have a 2012 study where researchers compared supplementing with creatine against supplementing with regular monohydrate and they found no evidence of reduced side effects, nor do they find any evidence of it being more effective, like the supplement companies were claiming. So the best most research cheapest and the safest bet is to stick with creatine monohydrate. And only experiment with others like HCl if you definitely feel bloating or other digestive issues from taking monohydrate. Now I'm sure you're wondering how much creatine you should take each time and when to take it for optimal results. Well, as far as how much to take each day for a long time, it was thought to be absolutely essential to do a week long loading phase, where you would have 20 to 25 grams of creatine every day for five to seven days. And then you would transition to only having three to five grams per day after that. Studies have shown that this strategy of taking in about 20 grams of creatine every day for about six days provides a rapid way to saturate your muscles full of creatine. However, they also show that the exact same result could be achieved over a longer period of time by taking only three grams a day for 28 days. Now keep in mind once you saturate your muscles full of creatine, any extra time A team you take in will be filtered out by your kidneys and will end up being literally flushed down the toilet. So even though loading can saturate your muscles faster, you can also just take three to five grams per day, save some money and still see the same results over the long term. But if you don't want to wait 28 days, and you want to feel the effects faster, just remember to divide the 20 grams per day into 210 gram servings before and after your workout or into five gram increments spread out into four portions throughout the day. This is done to prevent stomach issues that could come up from taking such a large serving all at once on top of loading. If you're really looking to speed up the absorption of creatine into your muscles even faster, it's important to consider what you're mixing the creatine with, as this can be just as helpful. In the past grape juice was considered the go to drink to mix creatine with but the truth is that grapes didn't contain some special quality that made the creatine any more effective. Instead, the sugar in the grape juice led to an insulin spike. And since insulin acts as a bridge between the nutrients you take in and your cells, it lead to faster and more effective absorption. You can see this play out in a study where loading creatine in combination with carbs or protein and carbs lead to significantly greater creatine retention than just loading creatine alone without carbs and protein. According to the study. If you take creatine along with carbs and protein during a loading phase, you can drop the time it takes to maximize your muscle creatine stores to only two to three days, instead of the six to seven days that it would normally take if you were loading without adding carbs and protein to your creatine supplement. If you want to try this method to speed up your loading phase even more, you can easily combine creating carbs and protein together by simply adding creatine into a protein shake, and then either mixing in some simple table sugar or blending in a banana into your shake. So this is great news if you want to experience the effects of creatine right away. However, even though you may saturate your muscles faster by loading creatine along with carbs and protein, like I already said earlier, it doesn't matter if you take creatine by itself or even if you skip out on loading entirely, you will eventually still saturate your muscles full of creatine, it'll just take a little longer. And once your muscle creatine stores are full, it just doesn't matter what you're taking creatine with, whether it's water, grape juice, or a protein shake filled with table sugar, because you've already maximized your muscle creatine stores. This is exactly why regardless of whether you load or not, after you've already saturated your muscles full of creatine, taking a three to five gram dose per day is all you'll need to maintain your elevated muscle creatine stores over the long run. And you can take that three to five grams serving with whatever beverage you want to continuously top off your body's creating supply. Now some people also do choose to cycle creatine use where they take it for six to 12 weeks, and then they stop for four weeks before going back on creatine again. And there really is no conclusive evidence in favor of cycling or not cycling as far as results go. According to research, it does seem perfectly safe to continuously take creatine without cycling at all. But if you consistently take creatine without stopping, then there's absolutely no need for a loading phase, there's no need to worry about what you're taking creatine with. And you'll only need about three grams per day to keep your muscles saturated. As far as when to take it there have been a couple studies done in which they compared taking creatine before workout against taking it after workout. And some of these studies showed that it was best to take after a workout while others showed that there was no difference between taking it before or after workout. So even though we can conclusively see a bigger advantage from taking it either directly before or directly after your workout, there may be a benefit of taking creatine in close proximity to your workout rather than at some random arbitrary time of the day. When researchers compared a group of men taking creatine either early in the morning or later on in the evening to a group of men taking creatine either directly before or after their workout. The group that took creatine closer to their workout gained more muscle mass and lost more body fat. They also seem to have gained a little more strength on exercises like bench press squats and deadlifts. However, there were two problems with the study. One is that there was a very small sample size of only 23 men and two is that they were taking the creatine along with protein and carbohydrates and having the protein and carbs closer to after a workout rather than at some random point of the day could have affected the results. On top of that, like I've said over and over again, your body will eventually maximize its creatine stores with enough time so you can dismiss this study as a fluke and just take creatine whenever you want. But if you just want to be on the safe side to ensure that you absorb the creatine as fast as possible, you can choose to take it either directly before or after your workout rather than at some random point of the day. You can also split the amount you take in Half This way, you can have some both before and after your workout. And on days where you're not working out, it definitely won't matter at all when you do take it. Now regardless of which creatine you get when you take it or how much you take, you should know that about 20 to 30% of the population is considered non responsive to creating use, which means they won't notice significant changes when taking this supplement. Finally, the last thing I want to cover in this video is hair loss. That's actually one of the most common questions nowadays, in relation to the safety of taking creating this idea mostly came from just one study done on rugby players that found that creating use increase their levels of DHT, which is a hormone associated with hair loss. In this study, DHT levels went up 40%. And while that might sound like a lot, simply starting to exercise can increase your DHT levels by 10 to 30%.
Also, even if DHT levels rise, it doesn't mean that your hair will automatically fall out. If you're not genetically susceptible to male pattern baldness. If your mom's dad has a full head of hair you're most likely not. But even if male pattern baldness does run in the family, there's still not enough proof that creatine will raise the HCG levels enough and keep it elevated for long enough to make you go bald. The bottom line is that we need a lot more studies and evidence supporting this one study on rugby players before we can even come close to a conclusion that creating use leads to hair loss. As of now, there's just not enough evidence to support that. That's about it guys, thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you have, make sure you subscribe to the channel and hit that bell icon so you can be notified whenever I release new tips and tricks just like the ones you found in this video. Also, keep in mind that supplements like creatine can really help but no supplement will replace hard work in the gym combined with a solid meal plan. At the end of the day, supplements will only make up a very small portion of your results. And the rest will have to come from your diet and training plan. So you feel like you need any extra help with developing an effective workout or diet plan based on your goals. Visit my website by clicking the more articles. We have everything from workout plans designed to get you to build muscle to recipe books that will help you burn fat and one on one coaching for those of you that need more help with your specific problems. So if you want to skip all the trial and error and get fast streamline results without even thinking about it.
