Creatine supplements can boost muscle mass and strength to take your gains to new heights.
Creatine supplements can boost muscle mass and strength to take your gains to new heights.Creatine supplements have increasingly become more popular as athletes everywhere want bulk up and really add to that muscle density. As a great supplemental aid to adding some serious gains, the effect creatine’s benefits can have on you is immense and should not be overlooked. For many men, creatine is considered one of the most popular and effective supplements for building muscle. As a smart and safe way to see gains, creatine supplements are a must have in your routine.
With so many supplements and supplement companies claiming they know everything and that their product is the best, it can be challenging, and quite frankly, overwhelming as you search for the best supplement to boost your goals. With creatine being so popular and widely used, finding the right product for you is not as hard as you may think. With proper care and a serious work ethic, creatine can give you gains like the best of them.
So, while this decision can be difficult, this complete guide to creatine supplements will hopefully help change the way you view and shop creatine products. With so many choices yet such great benefits, the right supplement is out there.
What Is Creatine?
Creatine is an amino acid found in your muscles and your brain. The stores of creatine your body has are primarily used to:
- Spark energy and improve performance
- Increase strength and size during heavy lifting or exercise
- Avoid muscle protein breakdown.
- Retain muscle mass for men more effectively than leucine alone
By taking a supplement, you work to restore those fuel stores so you’re ready to tackle any workout that comes next. With similar properties to other amino acids, creatine is great for muscle growth and recovery while also working towards a host of other bodily functions.
Check out our list of the Best Creatine Supplements for some great muscle building products!
How It Works In The Body
Your body’s energy source of ATP allows you to focus on taking down any grueling workout. During that workout, you use all that energy and potentially dip into those vital energy stores. A byproduct of using this energy then becomes ADP, which is essentially useless for the body. Enter creatine. By taking a creatine supplement, you are working to, in a way, recycle that useless ADP into reformed ATP, which if we go back to the top of this paragraph, is our body’s energy and helps maintain muscle mass.
Benefits Of Creatine
Let’s take a look at some of the great benefits creatine has to offer.
- Promote strength and size: By causing your cells to inflate, you provide for more muscle pumps and increased blood flow through those overworked muscles (1).
- Boost performance: By refueling those energy stores and enhancing your power output, you support growth and recovery to allow for better overall performance (2).
- Improve metabolism: Through the control of insulin sensitivity and glycemic control, it provides fuel and helps lead to fat loss.
- Increase cognitive function: Increasing oxygen utilization in the brain, you can boost memory and processing speed during those grueling workouts (3).
Types Of Creatine
Let’s take a look at creatine in some of it’s forms.
Creatine Monohydrate: Since this is a pure form of creatine, it can work to increase endurance and remove lactate from your muscle more efficiently. On top of that, it will aid in muscle growth and calorie burn (4).
Creatine HCL: This is creatine bound to hydrochloric acid which will work towards increased bioavailability and reduce side effects (5).
Creatine Anhydrous: The most potent of forms, it can increase muscle mass and enhance performance.
Tri-Creatine Malate: A combination of creatine and malic acid, this will help your body absorb more creatine, thus leading to higher ATP levels (6).
Creatine Pyruvate: A great mix of creatine and pyruvic acid, it’s good absorption properties are great for growth and recovery.
Magnesium Creatine Chelate: A unique combination of creatine and magnesium, this will enhance endurance and reduce muscular fatigue to keep intensity high.
Safety & Effectiveness
Creatine is one of the cheapest, most effective, and safest supplements around. With so many studies supporting these finding and many athletes gravitating towards creatine to beef up their strength, size, and performance goals, creatine is widely accepted as a great supplement for men looking to improve. With this occurring naturally in the body, you are only lending a helping hand to make sure those fuel stores stay stocked and your gains are taken care of (7).
Best Time To Take It
For men, taking creatine after a workout is the general consensus among many experts. This is because it will work to restore those depleted energy stores while aiding in recovery for that increased growth. However, some say before a workout will allow your muscles to put out maximum effort. Regardless of what you decide, whether it be pre- or post-workout, creatine can work wonders for your gains.
Featured Supplement
Many creatine supplements exist and many of them are actually great products. But for your gains, you should only be looking for the best of the best because your body works hard and needs proper fuel. This creatine supplement from Transparent Labs is an awesome product to help get you to where you want to be.
Transparent Labs StrengthSeries Creatine HMB
Transparent Labs StrengthSeries Creatine HMB is well worth the price and is one of the best creatine products for pure creatine. It has no added artificial flavors, fillers, preservatives, or coloring, which means the body isn’t wasting energy metabolizing useless chemicals — just pure creatine. Transparent Labs creatine is infused with HMB, or β-Hydroxy β-Methylbutyrate, which has been proven to increase muscle strength and lean body mass while decreasing fat mass. At a good price, this is a one of the best creatine products to buy for athletes.
Price: $39.00/ 30 servings
Use the promo code GENIRON10 for 10% off! Check out our individual review for Transparent Labs StrengthSeries Creatine HMB here!
Check out our list of the Best Creatine Supplements for some great creatine products!
Wrap Up
Creatine has the power to really work wonders for our training and performance goals. As a widely researched and popular supplement, it is no wonder why so many have gravitated towards creatine. With many benefits, scientifically backed research, and incredibe safety and effectiveness, creatine can work absolute wonders for you. This complete guide will hopefully help you navigate the world of creatine so the choice for you becomes a little easier. Look into a good creatine supplement today and see what this can do for all of your goals.
Let us know what you think in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
*Images courtesy of Transparent Labs and Envato
References
- Francaux, M.; Poortmans, J. R. (1999). “Effects of training and creatine supplement on muscle strength and body mass”. (source)
- Kreider, Richard B. (2003). “Effects of creatine supplementation on performance and training adaptations”. (source)
- Avgerinos, Konstantinos I.; Spyrou, Nikolaos; Bougioukas, Konstantinos I.; Kapogiannis, Dimitrios (2018). “Effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function of healthy individuals: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials”. (source)
- Kerksick, Chad M.; Wilborn, Colin D.; Campbell, William I.; Harvey, Travis M.; et al. (2009). “The Effects of Creatine Monohydrate Supplementation With and Without D-Pinitol on Resistance Training Adaptations”. (source)
- De Franca, Elias; Avelar, Bruno; Yoshioka, Caroline; Santana, Jeferson O.; Madureira, Diana; et al. (2015). “Creatine HCL and Creatine Monohydrate Improve Strength but Only Creatine HCL Induced Changes on Body Composition in Recreational Weightlifters”. (source)
- Sterkowicz, Stanislaw; Tyka, Anna K.; Chwastowski, Michal; Sterkowicz- Przybycien, Katarzyna; et al. (2012). “The effects of training and creatine malate supplementation during preparation period on physical capacity and special fitness in judo contestants”. (source)
- Jagim, Andrew R.; Stecker, Richard A.; Harty, Patrick S.; Erickson, Jacob L.; Kerksick, Chad M. (2018). “Safety of Creatine Supplementation in Active Adolescents and Youth: A Brief Review”. (source)
