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Creatine is recognized in the industry as an "evergreen tree for increasing muscle strength." It is favored by muscle-building enthusiasts because of its ability to increase muscle strength and explosive power, promote muscle synthesis, and increase muscle volume. But for a long time, people have not understood the specific principles and usage of creatine. Even professional bodybuilders still have too much confusion and confusion about creatine.
Confusion1: Should I take creatine before or after exercise?
Pro: Creatine should be taken before exercise
Basis:
1. Creatine is a small molecule substance and is absorbed quickly. The creatine supplemented before exercise can be directly utilized during exercise, providing fitness enthusiasts with sufficient creatine guarantee for higher intensity training.
2. Taking creatine before exercise can effectively increase the creatine level in the body and prevent the decline in exercise ability caused by insufficient creatine in the body. Creatine can be synthesized with phosphoric acid into creatine phosphate (CP), which becomes an important energy substance in the body. Creatine phosphate is the reserve army of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and is the energy storage body of ATP. Generally speaking, for rapid and explosive exercise within 8 seconds, the energy substance is mainly creatine phosphate. Oral administration of creatine can increase creatine phosphate content in muscles by 20%.
3. Taking creatine before exercise can significantly improve muscle strength, explosive power and muscle endurance. Some data show that taking 5 grams of creatine orally before exercise every day for 30 days can increase muscle contraction speed by 5%. Once creatine phosphate is depleted, physical energy will suddenly decrease.
Con: Creatine should be taken after training
Basis:
1. Muscle growth requires first dissociation and then excessive recovery. Therefore, muscle synthesis is not completed during training, but after training. Generally speaking, within 2 hours after training is the prime time for muscle synthesis. Supplementing creatine during this period can greatly promote the synthesis of muscle fibers and achieve twice the result with half the effort.
2. Supplement creatine in time after exercise to keep the creatine in the body in a better saturated state and prepare reserves for the next step of training. Promote muscle growth through the cycle of "muscles generate force, and force generates muscles".
3.Creatine brings water into the muscles through hydration, increasing the size of muscle cells, which helps muscle cells absorb amino acids, synthesize proteins, increase the rate of muscle protein synthesis, and promote the growth of new muscles.
Nutritionist analysis:
It can be seen from the debate between the pros and cons that creatine can play different roles when taken at different times. In fact, this is exactly what we expected. Therefore, what needs to be made clear is:
- Creatine can be taken before or after training. Time: half an hour to 1 hour before training; replenish within 2 hours after training, the sooner the better. It is strongly recommended to supplement creatine with sugary drinks to increase the absorption rate of creatine and reduce the waste of creatine. Once you take creatine, you must drink at least 1200ml more water every day on the basis of the original normal water intake to fully exert the hydration effect of creatine.
- If the purpose is to improve muscle strength and explosive power, it is recommended not to neglect creatine supplementation before training. If you want to improve muscle circumference and increase muscle volume, creatine supplementation after training is particularly critical.
- When using creatine for the first time, pay attention to the combination of impact period and maintenance period. During the 1-week shock period, take 5 grams of creatine 4 times a day. If you train twice a day, you can take creatine once before and after training. If you train once a day, do it once before and after training. There is no fixed time limit for the other two times, as long as they are 4 hours apart. The purpose of the shock phase is to quickly saturate the body's creatine in a short period of time. Without shock, it will take about 30 days for creatine to reach saturation in the body. After the shock period, just maintain with 5 grams of creatine per day.
- Long-term use of creatine requires 1 week of impact, 6 weeks of maintenance, and then 2-3 weeks of discontinuation. Then begins a new cycle of impact and maintenance.
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During normal training cycles, you should also pay attention to maintenance supplementation of creatine on days when you are not training to ensure the stability of creatine concentration in the body. If you stop training for more than 20 days, you can stop taking creatine first, and then replenish creatine when normal training begins.
Creatine is recognized in the industry as an "evergreen tree for increasing muscle strength." It is favored by muscle-building enthusiasts because of its ability to increase muscle strength and explosive power, promote muscle synthesis, and increase muscle volume. But for a long time, people have not understood the specific principles and usage of creatine. Even professional bodybuilders still have too much confusion and confusion about creatine.Confused2: Will creatine affect kidney function?
Positive: Creatine does not affect kidney function
Basis:
1. Creatine exists naturally in the body. The body can synthesize it by itself or ingest it through food. In muscles, creatine slowly generates creatinine mainly through an irreversible non-enzymatic dehydration reaction. It can be filtered through the glomerulus and is rarely absorbed in the renal tubules. Almost all of the creatinine produced in the body every day is excreted in the urine. Generally, Not affected by urine output. Therefore, for people with normal kidney function, the body can metabolize creatine normally, and supplementing with creatine will not affect kidney function.
2. Many people at home and abroad have conducted relevant research on whether creatine has side effects. It is reported that young and healthy adults take 20g of creatine every day for 5 days. During the period of taking creatine and within 6 weeks after taking it, the use of creatine does not have any side effects on the functions of the kidneys, liver and blood system. All test indicators are within the normal range. There are also studies on the continued use of creatine. Take 20g of creatine for 5 days, and then continue to take 10g of creatine for a total of 51 days. The results also showed that creatine supplementation did not affect liver and kidney function.
3. Facts speak louder than words. Creatine has been used in competitive sports teams and bodybuilding circles for a long time, but there has been no incident of kidney function damage caused by the use of creatine. This also verifies the role of creatine as a sports nutritional supplement. reliability.
Counter: Creatine affects kidney function
Basis:
1. The human body can synthesize creatine on its own or ingest it through food. This is a natural source of creatine and can be metabolized by the liver and kidneys through normal pathways. However, additional creatine supplementation is different from this. Ingesting a large amount of creatine at one time will inevitably increase the metabolic burden on the liver and kidneys.
2. After using creatine, the excretion of urinary creatinine increases, and creatinine is an indicator used clinically to judge kidney function. Increased urinary creatinine indirectly reflects changes in renal function.
3. The creatine products currently on the market are of mixed quality, and the side effects of pure creatine may simply increase the metabolic burden on the kidneys. However, once impurities are contained in creatine, the impact on health cannot be underestimated. Common impurities in low-purity creatine are dicyandiamide and dicyandiamide. Dicyandiamide will increase the burden of water excretion on the kidneys, while dicyanotriazine has the effect of dilating arteries and blood vessels.
Nutritionist analysis:
- Although many people are unfamiliar with creatine, creatine occurs naturally in the human body. An adult weighing 70 kilograms contains about 120 grams of creatine in the body, 95% of which is in muscles, and the rest is in the heart, brain and testicles. Creatine is naturally found in animal products such as pork, beef, lamb, and fish. 1 kilogram of lean beef contains 4 grams of creatine, but a considerable amount of creatine will be lost after cooking. Therefore, supplement creatine from food sources. First, the demand is large, and second, there are large losses. When dietary supplementation is insufficient, the body's liver, pancreas, and kidneys can also synthesize creatine from arginine, methionine, and glycine. However, these alone cannot achieve the ideal concentration of creatine in the muscles for an active human body. Therefore, high creatine content in muscles can only be achieved by supplementing creatine.
- Increased metabolic burden does not mean changes in liver and kidney function. In fact, the human body has a very magical natural regulatory mechanism. In order to ensure the ideal level of creatine in the body, choose to eat 5 grams of creatine instead of 1.25 kilograms of beef. In terms of molecular size and metabolism, this reduces the metabolic burden on the liver and kidneys.
- After creatine enters the human body and is digested and absorbed, it will cause a transient increase in serum creatinine, which will inevitably cause a temporary increase in creatinine excretion in the urine, which may cause some unexplained clinicians to mistakenly believe that the patient's kidney function is abnormal. But in medicine, glomerular filtration rate can be used to more scientifically measure human kidney function. Studies have confirmed that creatine does not affect the body's glomerular filtration function. In other words, taking creatine does not impair kidney function in healthy people.
- Creatine is not a hormone. It is fundamentally different from steroids, growth hormone, and testosterone. It should be supplemented reasonably and without causing any interference or damage to the human body's endocrine system. Creatine was discovered in 1832 and has a history of nearly 200 years. Researchers have conducted long-term and extensive studies on the effects and side effects of creatine, but there is no conclusive evidence that creatine supplementation has an effect on human liver and kidney metabolism. adverse effects.
- Creatine does not interfere with or damage the body's kidney function. However, from a prudent point of view, it is recommended that patients with existing renal insufficiency avoid using creatine, while for other people, creatine is a safe nutritional supplement.
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The issue of purity is critical. Purity is the lifeblood of creatine. Pure creatine has no side effects, but if the creatine is impure, it can pose serious health risks. When choosing creatine, you can't just focus on the name. It doesn't mean that the product name is "pure creatine" and you can sit back and relax. Be sure to learn to identify high-quality creatine. As awareness increases, the countryThe review of sports nutrition products is becoming more and more stringent, which is undoubtedly a good thing for consumers. At present, the country has introduced industry standards for creatine. Certified creatine will be marked "sports nutrition food" on the bottle, indicating that this creatine product belongs to the food category. Consumers must carefully observe the labels when purchasing, purchase creatine products with guaranteed safety, and be responsible for their own health.