Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2497: The Amazing & Weird Side Effects of Creatine

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

We're doing business differently here in Manitoba at the Stu Clark Graduate School. It's an energy, a feeling, a buzz. You feel it in our professional services, on our work placements, in the connections you make with business leaders. It's unique, something you won't find anywhere else. This is the graduate experience at the Asper School of Business, where you can master your business career. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind,

there's only one place to go. Mind Pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode is about the most studied, most effective supplement for muscle building, and fat burning, and cognitive health,

and maybe even mental health. We're talking about Creightene. By the way, today's episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Legion. In fact, they have a great Creightene supplement. They They have creatine gummies. Go check them out. Go to buylegion.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump get 20% off. Also this is the December special for workout program sales. We have two programs on sale for 50% off. Maps aesthetic and map symmetry both half off. If you're

interested go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code December50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. Crateine, you know what it is. It's amazing. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about the amazing and weird side effects of Crateine. Let's go. The weird side effects.

Weird, yeah, you get to have this part. Yeah, no, that was just the title that they gave us. They said it would do really well. Thank you, Jeremy. Yep, no, actually, okay, so Crate creatine is now we've been talking about creatine for God since day one forever for ten years now in the podcast. The one supplement where like this one has legitimacy. Yeah but I think it's it I think give you your flowers right where you deserve it here is I mean plenty of people been talking

about creatine for a very long time creatine is the most studied supplement in the market like we've known for a long time how awesome is what I think you were saying long before Everybody else was parroting it was it was something that we would recommend eventually to the elderly to children to people that Aren't necessarily just trying to build muscle that that just for cognitive benefits, for health, for general health, this is going to become accepted by everybody. And I think that's been the most interesting thing that I've seen happen in the last 10 years is that,

yes, we've known for a long time that it's the number one performance supplement, but what is probably new to most people and probably a lot of people that will listen this episode today are all the other Benefits and all the other goals basically most everybody if not everybody should be taking it Yeah, and we don't say that about any supplement really lots of supplements their value can come from whether or not you have a deficiency so like you know if you have a nutrient deficiency a vitamin that you're lacking is a beneficial supplement. But Creightene across the board seems to be beneficial.

I don't wanna say, I say seems, but you said it, Adam. It's the most studied ergogenic supplement in history. There's literally thousands of studies that have been done now on Creightene since it's hit the market in the early 90s. So it's it's extremely Well studied. We know very well. It's a safety profile. It's actually exceptionally safe supplement Not only is it safe, but it's pro health now for people who aren't familiar with what it is or you know

I remember by the way when it first came out in the early 90s how they talked about it like it was a steroid yes like that all these concerns yeah all my coaches and at the time I remember you know you had like pro athletes would use it and so it was lumped in with other performance enhancing substances like some of the pro hormones that were out at the time it's not a hormone it's not a signal around that way. Crateine is naturally found in animal meat. And your body also synthesizes Crateine from the amino acids, arginine, glycine, and methionine.

So it is not an essential nutrient. In other words, you don't have to take creatine because your body will synthesize it But it is essential for your body That's why your body makes it your body needs Creatine because creatine is used in the formation of a very important molecule called ATP ATP, you know, this is like, you know biology 101 ATP is a primary source of energy for ATP, you know, this is like, you know, biology 101. ATP is a primary source of energy for your cells,

all your cells, right? Any cell that uses energy, which is all of them, or has a mitochondria, uses this form of energy known as ATP. ATP is adenosine triphosphate, and your body uses this energy to function. And creatine improves or increases the amount of available ATP. The reason why 10 years ago I was saying

this is a supplement that's good for, it's gonna be good for so many things, and we're gonna see studies start to support this, is because if any cell has more available energy, then it's gonna operate better, regardless of where the cell is. And if your cells are operating better, then pretty much any and every goal related to health and performance is going to improve.

Now the question is, well why supplement with creatine? We only get, we don't tap out or top out on the amount of creatine that our body can use from our diets. It's actually quite hard to do. You would have to eat a tremendous amount of animal meat to consume enough creatine to where your body's not gonna utilize any more of it, okay?

So the average omnivore is gonna get probably half of the creatine that they're gonna use from their diet. The body will synthesize the rest. Vegans don't get nearly enough creatine because they don't get any creatine from their diet. They have to synthesize all of it from amino acids. And what the studies have shown with creatine supplementation is you could take additional creatine and derive additional benefits. So although you don't have to take creatine, when you do, you get additional benefits,

I think is the point. What's your evolutionary theory on why that number, that the upper threshold is higher than what the average would have been? Do you think that for thousands of years, we were intaking much higher levels of creatine, and over time, that we've introduced other food groups, and we can preserve food, and- Holy mammoth meat.

We've moved away from actually, because think about almost everything else, there's a reason behind or there's an evolutionary theory to why we'd want to take a certain amount in. The fact that most people, if not everybody, doesn't get the upper limit. That's a very good question. I don't know, I could speculate that hunter gatherers, get the upper limit? That's a very good question.

I don't know. I could speculate that hunter gatherers, a lot of our calories came from animal sources of protein. It wasn't until the agricultural revolution that we moved over to being able to cultivate crops. Our diets changed radically through that process. A lot of things changed about us because of it. I'm not quite sure maybe the body evolved to be able to utilize more creatine during

those periods of time when you were successful as a hunter and so you would benefit. I'm not sure but the fact remains that taking the upper limit of creatine that your body can synthesize results in benefit. Now the speculation early on with creatine was well because it needs to filter through your kidneys this could be damaging to your kidneys and now I remember that being the first big counter was oh don't take creatine this is gonna stress your kidneys out and that's that was the that was the counter to protein even for a long time. Eating too much protein isn't

good it needs to be synthesized by the kidneys. We have lots and lots and lots of studies that have shown conclusively that eating a high protein diet, eating a diet or supplementing with creatine has no negative effects on the kidneys. Probably actually has a beneficial effect, at least in the case of creatine.

However, if you have kidney disease, that's when you need to be careful with ingesting both protein and creatine and you know this if this is you you know this you have a nephrologist that you work with and they'll put you on a modified diet because of your compromised kidney function but that does not mean that if you have healthy kidneys you need to be careful at all again there's lots and lots and lots of studies now on this and it does not negatively affect kidney function in any way whatsoever. So let's start with some of the benefits.

I think we'll start with the one that everybody knows. This is the first one that everybody identified, which is that it makes you stronger and you build more muscle on creatine. The strength gains on creatine are predictable, by the way. If you don't take creatine and then you supplement with creatine, what you can expect, and I can get real specific with this for most people, what you can expect by supplementing with creatine probably by week two because it takes time to build up these creatine stores, is about two to four reps on every lift or five to ten pounds on Every lift. Yeah, it's pretty Precise most people you'll notice it so your bench press will go up five to ten pounds

Or you'll do two to four more reps on your bench press your deadlifter squat your overhead press whatever, I remember trying to tease that out because Also bumping calories up substantially for me in a bulk Like I felt a bit of a boost from that performance wise But then just focusing on supplementing with creatine and you know being really hydrated Made a huge difference on its own and that literally was like a two rep difference that I got out of squeezed out in terms Of like my lifts. Yeah I'm gonna tell you how I used to explain it as a 20 year old trainer and then you can poke holes

In my my science or tell me if you think that it was a good way to explain it So I tell my clients that I'd say every time you do a set. Let's say we'll say benchpress Your body utilizes this ATP and ADP. It breaks it down. And let's just say for this explanation, you have 100 of those molecules, and you go do a set of bench press, and your body uses 20, and then you sit and you rest. When you sit and you rest,

your body replenishes, let's say, 15 of those 20, and then you do the next set, which is why you kind of, throughout the workout, you feel like you get a little weaker and tired throughout the workout, and that's just the breaking down of this and utilizing that when you're on creatine Instead of you replenishing 15 of those molecules on your rest period you replenish 18 or 19. Yeah, and so that's not a bad explanation Okay, and then that is where the a little bit of additional strength comes from that little bit of additional strength is what allows

You to get two more reps or add five more pounds to a set, which that is what in turn builds more muscle. Yeah that's not a bad explanation. It's more like, so when your strength training or you're doing explosive power movement, you burn through ATP very quickly and then you move to glycogen. Okay so if you do a sprint or you lift something heavy, the energy that you burn up is ATP. If you do a bunch of sets in a row, no rest, I'm doing circuit training or something like that, I've burned up my ATP, I'm using glycogen, I'm building endurance. The ATP burns up quickly. You rest to replenish the ATP. So when I'm doing a set of 10, ATP is gone, I rack the bar, I

wait. Rest is real important. ATP rebuilds. What's happening, we take creatine, is you start out with more ATP right out the gates. So I automatically have more of this dynamite, right? More of this quick burning energy that allows my muscles to contract with power and strength for a couple more reps.

This process also aids in the muscle building process because then the other criticism was, well, you're a little stronger and your lean body mass goes up, but it's not muscle, it's the extra fluid within your... Yeah, I was going to say, isn't that a factor as well, having an extra fluid in your muscles just like to... We've noticed a bit of benefit from sodium as well, in terms of being able to retain fluid in terms of performance for strength. Yeah, so let's actually touch on that, right?

Because that's a big criticism, and that's actually one of the reasons why women have stayed away from creatine. Because when you go on creatine, it's also predictable that you'll gain between one to four pounds, depending on how much muscle mass you have, can be as much as five or six pounds on the scale.

So if you're a big dude, you'll probably go up five pounds on the scale. If you're a smaller female, one to three pounds on the scale. And so people are like, I'm not taking creatine. I'm not trying to gain any weight. And they say, oh, don't worry, it's not fat, it's water. Well, now you're really freaking someone out, especially a woman who's like, I don't wanna be bloated.

I'm not trying to hold water. It's not the same whatsoever. Bloat is water under the skin. That's what makes you look puffy. So it makes your face look puffy. Water that you gain from creatine is the hydrating type of water. In your muscle.

In its intracellular fluid and water. By the way, your muscles are like 70 plus percent fluid if you can add more fluid to your muscle here's what happens to you here's what happens to you when you gain three pounds of water on creatine your muscles feel tighter your muscles look rounder your glutes look rounder your shoulders look rounder. It also goes to your skin. Your skin is more hydrated. This is great and this contributes to a better muscle protein synthesis signal. So the initial gains are definitely this hydrating intracellular fluid which is not bad. Remember it makes you look better. You'll actually look

better and feel tighter. But now because your muscle cells have more fluid within them, they actually build muscle faster. Because the muscle building process takes longer than a week or two. The initial gain in strength is not because you have more muscle, it's because you have more ATP.

ATP draws water in, so now your muscles are more hydrated. That makes them build faster. So you actually see a faster muscle building process when your muscles have more ATP. So it builds strength and builds muscle, but that's the first thing that we identified with the creatine studies, and we saw that right out the gates.

It's hard to debate that. Like, take creatine, you know, right away. Oh, I'm stronger. And then you take it for longer and you're like, oh, I'm definitely building more muscle. Yeah, I think this is the least interesting part of the conversation because I think this is what most people have known

for a long time. Everybody knows that. I think the thing that's most interesting is getting into the other stuff that totally really should appeal to people in advanced age, to women, to children. Longevity focus. Longevity focus, fat loss focus. Like those are the areas that I think a lot of people still don't realize and understand the incredible

benefits of creatine. That's right, so here's the next one, is that studies actually show that creatine probably helps prevent injury. Now early on, another criticism with creatine was muscle cramping, muscle tears, you're gonna hurt yourself. That's not true, in, the data shows that it helps Potentially probably tration and elasticity of like the ligaments. Everything's operating better. Yeah, everything is operating better

And it also helps speed up recovery from injury. It's it's a great rehab supplement to take So it's an injury prevention supplement to take. So it's an injury prevention rehab based molecule or if you will that you can take that also helps with things like mobility, helps with injury, helps with muscle strain, and helps with muscle function. It reminds me a lot about a similar type of benefits that like red light therapy gives you because it improves mitochondria. That's right. It's like anything that improves the cell or an improves mitochondria. It's like anything that improves the cell or improves mitochondria is going to overall

benefit almost anything. I mean, the cells are healthier, more hydrated. They run better and they're responsible for all those things. It's like, it's only gonna make all those things better. Now my favorite is when we get into the cognitive effects of creatine. My favorite is when we get into the cognitive effects of creatine. It improves IQ, memory recall, sharpness, and alertness, but it is not a stimulant.

This is where it gets really interesting. Things that tend to improve those things like caffeine also tend to be stimulants. Creatine is not a stimulant, although there is anecdotally some people will say they feel more stimulated, maybe from more ATP, they might have been real depleted to begin with, but it's not a traditional stimulant, you don't get a faster heart rate from it, you don't get anything like that. By the way, it improves heart health and liver health through the improved mitochondrial function, but it does raise IQ levels, especially in vegans.

There's actually a measurable IQ rise in vegans who supplement with creatine, and by the way, creatine is vegan. When you buy supplemental creatine, they don't, they make it through amino acids fermentation, they do not make it from, they're not taking it from animal sources. So when you buy creatine, you're buying a vegan supplement

and you're getting something that could have profound effects on your overall health and function, the cognitive function in particular. And again, the studies on vegans who take creatine is like, they actually will test their idea. Oh, it's imperative they take it. Oh yeah, this was a supplement. All my vegan clients was like,

we are for sure taking creatine every time they did they were like Oh my god, this is amazing. I think the biggest takeaway from that is just how Common that we were we're all deficient in that. I think that's what that I mean They just highlight there because they're an extreme version. They they don't get any crazy Yeah, they intentionally avoid meat But what do we always say that protein is like there's always the thing that you hit you. Yeah, no matter even even when I have an omnivore client, they still struggle to hit their protein

takes and so to me when I when I hear a study like that that highlights vegans who avoid meat and I know that all my clients were under eating meat. It just highlights to me how many people are just deficient in that and if you've ever been told of a deficiency that you have And then you supplement for that deficiency the the stuff that you feel positive is crazy I mean there's like that's always the thing I mean, it's like you've heard me talk about on the show in ten years finding out about both my vitamin D finding out about my magnesium and just Supplementing for those things how life changes so if you're deficient in something like creatine, it's like an instant, like,

oh, feel a difference, positive benefit. Huge. Next, and this one's also very exciting, and there's lots of now research around this and data to support this, it has anti-depressant effects for many, many people people In other words taking creatine Elevates your mood so this also has been and I I predict in the future that creatine will be a Supplement that is a first-line Intervention for somebody suffering from low No, is this is isolated from exercising in combination. Yep. It's isolated from itself. So does it have anything to do with like serotonin or dopamine or is it just the overall positiveness of being with more energy?

Okay, so it's more of that. Like... Yeah, oftentimes depression, I mean depression is very complex. I want to be clear. It's extremely complex. But sometimes depression is just low energy. It's low energy, low function, brain function isn't so good, and so you have a physically depressed feeling. That's what that is. Creatine has been shown in studies

to have an anti-depressant effect in people, especially in women. In women you see a more pronounced effect with creatine supplementation. So that's probably what goes hand in hand with the anti-anxiety stuff too. Yes, it also has anti-anxiety effects for many people. And again, this probably has to do with this, I'm not producing enough creatine, I don't have enough ATP, which is going to make you feel uneasy, not so good.

Whereas supplementing with creatine, I feel good, I feel energized, depression's gone, I feel calmer. Again, it's not a stimulant, so it's one of those remarkable, I mean, it's one of the very few, if only things I can think of, that is anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, improves cognition that's not a stimulant simultaneously. In other words, if you're one of those people, it's like, if you have anxiety,

you probably don't want to take caffeine. Even though it might be an antidepressant and improve cognition, you also have anxiety. Ugh, caffeine might be the worst. It's a little exacerbated a lot of times. That's right. Creatine has enzylidic effects for many people. Now, as we're going through these, Sal,

do you remember or can you recall the order in which we we came to this conclusion because some of this stuff is like relatively new research right we've known the the muscle building stuff for a very very long time right that's it's for a very very long time there's tons of studies on that but in the last decade some of some of this stuff has really been many in the last ten years some of it in less five okay yeah so what is the most recent thing that we've learned probably the depression and anxiety I would, are some of the more recent ones. When

we get to skin health, those are also very recent. Because as people realize, like, you know, here you have this supplement for athletic performance, and then when people started, you know, marketers and companies started seeing, well, this works by increasing ATP. What side effects do people get from not producing enough ATP or what happens when we have more mitochondrial energy? So research started going into, well maybe we know now creatine increases ATP, because now it's been around

for 20 something years or 30 years. So let's give it to these people with depression, let's give it to people with anxiety, let's give it to these people. The general public, it seems that they've moved from athletes over to like kind of see less active people or just like everyday average people. Yeah, I mean it's, you know, and by the end of this, you'll realize that it's, this is probably

the best wellness, health, slash performance supplement you could take. I mean, really, I can't think of a more, generally speaking, better supplement to take for all of those things. This is one of the things I tell everybody to take. And in very rare cases, very rare cases do people have gastro distress from creatine.

So if you're watching this and you've tried creatine and it causes gastro issues, then it's not for you. But that's a very small percentage of people, something like 5% or less. Everybody seems to be pretty well tolerant of supplementing with creatine. One of the more recent studies I've seen shows that it helps with sleep.

So now these studies were done with post-menopausal women who started supplementing with creatine, and they all had improvements in sleep duration and sleep quality from supplementing with creatine. Which was- What do you think, Dave? What's the mechanism? Positive energy throughout the day

that causes you just to have better rest, you think? You know, it all goes back to- Other rhythms. It all goes back to better functioning mitochondria. You mentioned something earlier in this episode, Adam, about giving this to the elderly. You hear this in the biohacking world all the time. Mitochondrial health, it's all about mitochondrial health.

If you want longevity, you want to stay young, you want to be youthful, you have to focus on improving your mitochondrial health, right? And they'll talk about supplements like NAD and use this peptide, use that peptide, and here's how you optimize your sleep and your sunlight and your whatever to improve mitochondrial health. As you age, your mitochondria start to function at lower and lower levels. Anything that improves the function of your mitochondria will help stave off the common

effects that come from aging. One of the more common effects as we get older is our sleep quality goes down. Everybody knows this. Like, once you hit 40, 50, 60, 70, you talk to anybody in those age groups, sleep quality starts to go down. Postmenopausal women will all, I mean, a majority of them will complain about sleep issues.

This study was looking at what does creatine do for them in general and found pronounced effect on improvements in sleep. So this is a supplement that can help you get better sleep as well. Bone health will be the next one. So it's probably beneficial for improving bone health. This may have to do with improvements in strength. For sure.

Cause we already know that. We know that lifting. Muscles are stronger. Yes, right. We know that if you're stronger, you're lifting more weights, the same signal that causes muscles to grow and adapt is the same signal that will make bone

grow and adapt and get stronger, right? So it's gotta be directly connected. Definitely. So it's probably gonna be one of those things that will start getting recommended regularly to people with osteoporosis. And I'm sure it'll be in combination because if you have osteoporosis,

almost every doctor now will tell you to do some kind of weight bearing, they'll say, or strength training exercise. Creatine's probably gonna be- Yeah, I want you to illuminate that too, Sal, as you go through these. Okay, so some of these, for example, the cognitive benefits,

you don't even necessarily need to be strength training just you supplementing that should show a difference that because you're depleted in that that's right so there's an example of something that doesn't even require that but obviously in order to see the muscle building benefits you obviously need to be lifting weights to muscle building yes strength no do no strength training take creatine you're strong oh wow so there so there is studies that show that even you're stronger you just you're just gonna be stronger because you have more ATP. It's not gonna be like a, you're gonna get an effect

and then it's done. So you could do five to 10 more pounds than you did before. Wow, okay, so that's interesting. But then you stop. So you could recruit at a higher capacity? It's like giving your muscles more. More dynamite, like you said.

More dynamite, more gasoline for the strength. So you don't need to do strength training to get stronger from creatine, but the strength that you gain from it is finite. So you get stronger and then you're done, right? So add the strength training because, okay cool, you're five pounds stronger, that's not really that big of a deal. Because the reason why I wanted to highlight that is because even you are a bit of an anomaly, somebody who's since 17 years old been taking it and you've never stopped and you've been consistent. I, on the other hand, I think I'm probably more like

other people that know the benefits of it and then intermittently use it or have runs or what I used to do, like only when I strength trained I took it, where it's like, this is more likely to be used how you've been using it forever than that's how it should be used. It's just like, it doesn't even matter if you're lifting weights or you're falling off the wagon of training. It has so many

other positive benefits that it should just become a regular supplement that you take hold of. Yeah, probably. There's limited data on this, but it probably improves immune function as well. So you're probably going to have a better functioning immune system. I mean, again, anything that makes your cells operate better. The overall function of the cell, if it improves, it's going to be great.

That's right. Next up, this one's my favorite one, is it promotes skin health. So now you're starting to see skin products with creatine in them. Really? Rub into your skin. I have not seen that.

Topically? Topically. Really? Now taking creatine will also improve the health of your skin because I have not seen that. Topically? Topically. Really? Now taking creatine will also improve the health of your skin because That makes sense. The skin cells absorb it. The skin cells are more hydrated.

This and the, remember your skin is made up of protein matrices like collagen, right? So it's like this, your skin is protein, okay? So if the proteins in your skin are gonna rebuild faster, just like the proteins in your skin are going to rebuild faster, just like the proteins in your muscle, or more hydrated, you're going to have a more youthful appearance with your skin. So it's a pro-

Interesting, I didn't know they were using it like that. It is, and again, it's so crazy to me that women have stayed away from creatine. I can't think of a better supplement for women than creatine, for anybody than creatine, but for women in particular, for the concerns that they have. I want my skin to look better, that tends to be a female thing.

I want my muscles to look rounder, more firm. I wanna have a faster metabolism, like creatine across the board is what you need. Which takes us to this next one. Indirectly, I'll say this, indirectly, it's probably the best fat burning supplement you'll ever take. I love that.

I've heard you make that argument in other interviews and stuff that you've done before. And I just think that the way we've been coaching and training clients for over well over a decade now, where no matter how much weight you need to lose, the first thing that we all do is reverse diet and focus on building muscle in order to speed their metabolism up. Because that is the fastest way to lose that 100 pounds. It is not to take them where they're at and just start cutting calories and moving more,

which is traditionally how we used to do things. The more effective way to do things for that person who needs to lose 100 pounds is actually to reverse diet them, to build their metabolism so that their body then automatically burns more body fat or uses more fuel. That's a far better, not only better faster strategy but also a more realistic sustainable one. So it makes sense that creatine should be one of the best if not the

best fat burning supplements even though you don't take creatine and it goes and burns fat but let's be honest, no supplement does that. Not even fat-burning supplements do that. There is no supplement that burns body fat. That's a total myth. Some make you eat less for a short period of time. Others make you more hyper, I guess that makes you move more maybe for a short period of time. But, creatine indirectly has this metabolism boosting effect through the muscle building process. Now, here's why it's never been sold as a fat burning supplement, because you gain a few pounds on the scale when you take it.

Right, and so people would automatically be like, this is the worst fat burning supplement ever. I took it and I added three pounds on the scale. That's right, but remember, the three pounds, let me, okay, here I'm going to, I'm going to blow everybody's mind right now, okay? If you take creatine today and you take it consistently over the next two weeks and you gain three pounds on the scale Okay, and you lost no body fat you have a lower body fat percentage You will have a lower body fat percentage in two weeks on kratene than you did if you didn't take kratene

But you lost no body fat. How is this possible because your lean body mass went up Your body fat stayed the same your body fat now is a smaller percentage of your overall body weight. Remember lean body mass is everything that's not body fat, which includes intracellular fluid. So if I put three pounds of intracellular fluid in your muscle, muscles feel tighter, they look rounder and firmer, and then you test your body fat, now it's not a huge effect, It'll be like point, you know, 2% lower. So it's not that big effect. But you're actually leaner.

You're actually leaner two weeks later because your lean body mass went up a little bit even though your body fat, actual body fat pounds didn't go down or up. And you look a little bit leaner. Here's what I want women to understand. If you took the, don't weigh yourself. That messes people up.

If you take creatine, you gain three pounds of sculpt and shape and firmness, the way you're going to look is leaner as a result. Now the fat burning effect happens later as you build the muscle and the metabolism starts to speed up, you'll actually improve your body's ability to burn body fat through the muscle building process, which is something that we sell and talk about every single day. So for those reasons right there, and I can argue this all day long,

creatine is the best fat burning supplement you could possibly take. I love that. Okay, we have a couple questions. The first one is, how much creatine should I take every day? Most people would benefit between three to five grams a day. Now haven't some studies showed there's some positive benefits to even the upper limits of like 10?

More muscle mass you have in particular, but there's some studies that show that 10 grams a day probably has more of a cognitive boosting effect than just five grams a day. Nonetheless, taking upwards of 20 grams has been shown safe for long periods of time, but I always tell people five grams is a nice, happy medium, you're gonna do great with that.

If you wanna play with the 10 grams and see if you notice a difference, go for it. But that's pretty much it. I always told my women three to five, my men five plus is what I would say. Especially if you're a bigger guy. You're 220 plus pounds. Mainly because of weight.

You can handle five. Five plus. You have more cells that need more ATP. But I've been taking five grams a day for like you said so 16 so the next question is does it make a difference when I take the creatine not really although I will say that there have been some studies that showed that years this work a bit of yeah a bit of improved uptake if you take it right around your workout before or after that being said I, I mean, if it increases the uptake

by a little bit, like taking an extra half a gram would make up that difference. So it really doesn't make that big of a difference. Anecdotally, I will say this though. We split it before and after. I've had, in my whole career of training, I did have two clients that if they took it before bed, they got a mild stimulatory effect,

they felt kind of like a little more awake. The data doesn't show this, I just had clients tell me. I think in the morning or around your workout. The way I always answered this was because it's a splitting hair difference on the post workout. So yeah, okay, great, if you can, that's great. But most important is the consistency. So if you already take your multivitamin or something else at a certain time of the day take it with you

Know whatever whatever you whatever you'll do it the most consistent. That's the most important part time of the day I think that's the best because that that's far more important than trying to time a Anabolic window or something like that be in your system and you build you lies. That's right. That's right The next question is should I cycle on and off of creatine? No, that was a myth back in the day. So was the whole loading thing. Like you load creatine and then you go down to a maintenance store.

Loading phase. The loading, I'll touch on that. The studies showed that when you load creatine, taking 20 grams a day for the first seven days, that you top out your creatine stores faster. That's true by a day or two It's not worth the money that you're throwing down the tubes by taking so much creatine and then cycling it No, like the benefits are so profound. This is a forever. You just take it all the time

There's no need to cycle it. There's no doesn't affect your body's ability to synthesize creatine You don't have this negative feedback loop none of that stuff. You just take it all the time The last question is, what is the best form of creatine? Okay, so here's what I love about the supplement industry. If a supplement ever comes out that shows any benefit, but when creatine is at the top, then what they try to do is come out with ways

of selling you more expensive versions or whatever, and this one doesn't cause bloat, which creatine doesn't cause bloat to begin with. So it's time released or whatever. Yeah, like creatine monohydrate is the one that's been studied with 99% of the studies. There's no problems with it. It's the best form.

Every other form of creatine has been shown to be less effective or the same. So it's like, if you're gonna spend more money taking another, like it makes no sense. Go with pure creatine monohydrate. So you have to tell the audience why that is and the reason why that is is because the purest most basic form of it has become really cheap because the market is demanded so much you can get so readily available anybody and everybody can has

access to it and so what that does is it has driven the price down and so the margins are tiny on creatine. Most companies that sell creatine make very little profit on it because it's so many people can get a hold of it So the way that these companies make up for those margins is by putting other things in it and then Marketing and advertising to you that this is better for these reasons Because they're trying to make up for the margins that aren't there and creating monohyd. But creatine monohydrate is the best. It gets the job done. Dude, I'll tell you, you're so right. In 1994 or five, when I first started taking creatine, 40 servings of creatine, 40 servings was 50 bucks. In 1995, which is like $10,000 today,

I don't know, inflation and all that, but that's how much it was then. You could buy so much pure powder creatine now for like 30 bucks, it's ridiculous. You're 100% right. The market got so good with it, so crazy, that you could get a lot of it. I would say now, use the form of crepe that's going to help you use more of it more consistently. I'm so glad you said that because that, my case I would have made, this is why I'm such a fan of the gummies. I know you tease me all the time about the flavor things and tasting but it's like I

Have most my life been in or for most my lifting career I've been aware of creatine and I've never been as consistent as I am today And it's because now companies are making gummy form. Yep, and I like to eat them and so Powder yeah, yeah making gummy form. And I liked eating them. And so I know that I need to eat it every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so, and again, if so, I guess this is how I would tell the audience. If, if you want the the best form for the cheapest price, go with one of the reputable companies that we work with. We work with a couple companies that that supply creatine and get their powdered

plain form. If you're trying to save money for this,. If you are concerned about consistency then I recommend the gummy direction because I think that I mean it's like four or five gummies you get your five grams of cream cheese. So that's how I'll because it's gonna be a little bit more expensive to pay in the gummy form so if you use it but you'll use it and if you like it and you don't really care about the couple extra bucks it costs then go that direction if you're looking for the best for the cheapest price then go with one of the reputable

companies that does just pure monohydrate just a pure powder. Perfect. All right look if you like the show come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin, I'm at Mind Pump DeStefano and Adam's at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs.

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