Creatine Supplements - Why take them?

Creatine intake is able to increase performance in sessions where efforts are short (in duration) and intense; as in:

• HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) practice. Team sports training on court (Basketball, Handball, Indoor Football, Volleyball, etc). CrossFit® and other high intensity sports disciplines, such as combat sports.

By decreasing the recovery time required between sets to re-express maximum muscle contractile capacity.

It has been shown that, at doses of at least 3 grams per day, taken over the long term, without rest, it is able to amplify the effects of weight training in adults over 55 years of age who are exposed to a specific training regime.

These effects include increased strength, an adaptation of weight training, which creatine is able to enhance.

The positive effects on muscle gain seem to be due to the increase in lean mass, another of the adaptations of weight training, which seems to have a direct relationship with the ability to express strength.

Much research points to the positive potential of creatine to increase lean mass in older adults as an adaptation to weight training (Chiliback et al., 2017), which, in essence, would enhance strength gains.

Creatine is your best ally in weight training for muscle development!

It has not been unequivocally associated with improved post-training recovery. Creatine can increase the speed of recovery between high intensity, short duration efforts by increasing the availability of energy donors, hence improving performance in this type of training.

Glutamine is a conditionally essential amino acid, which is particularly important for athletes undergoing high-intensity and long-duration training, as it is the main amino acid present in muscle tissue.

The intake of Creatine Stack with Glutamine is recommended for any sportsperson and/or athlete who performs moderately intense training. An example would be weight training.

Beta-alanine is a non-essential amino acid, which is used especially by athletes in anaerobic disciplines.

You can find it in products such as Evordx 2.0

Between 2019 and 2020, a series of studies on athletes were published which showed that the combination of Creatine with HMB, a metabolite of the amino acid L-Leucine, was superior to the separate use of the compounds.

The research group of Fernández-Landa, a member of the department of nursing and physiotherapy at the University of León (Spain), is responsible for these findings.

The combination of creatine with nitric oxide precursors is widely used by athletes seeking maximum performance as a pre-workout.

You can combine creatine monohydrate with:

•  Citrulline malate.
•  Evopump.
•  L-Arginine Alpha-Ketoglutarate.
•  L-Arginine HCl.

You can also find it, already formulated, in the pre-workout Evobomb.

There are many people who think that creatine is fattening.

This means that especially women are reluctant to try this supplement. This means that they do not benefit from all its advantages.

The reality is that creatine is NOT fattening, but it can make us gain body weight. But it should be made clear that gaining or losing weight does not mean gaining or losing fat. Body weight is the sum of lean mass, bone mass, muscle mass, fat mass and water.

The latter can be highly variable depending on our diet. And it is determined by our level of hydration and fluid retention.

What happens with creatine is that it increases the level of cellular hydration due to its ability to bind water.

Therefore, dietary supplementation with creatine can increase weight due to an increased volume of intracellular water.

Nowadays many questions or doubts have arisen about the protocols of taking creatine. If you have to do loads and then rests, etc. And there are many theories about this.

There are theories that claim that, in order to fill the phosphocreatine reserves quickly, it is necessary to do a loading.

This is not true because, as we have indicated above, although loading can increase the effect of creatine during the first few days, after 3 weeks of continuous consumption at a dose of 3g per day, the effect achieved is the same, with less product expenditure and less risk of experiencing digestive discomfort and other unwanted side effects.

There are also hypotheses or theories that claim that creatine should only be consumed continuously for about a month, as after that time tolerance is built up and there is a lower rate of absorption.

This is why it is said that creatine has to be cycled. In other words, alternate periods of intake with periods of rest to ensure sensitivity to creatine.

Once optimal levels of muscle creatine are reached, it is recommended that they continue to be used so that these levels are sustained over time.

This proves that creatine absorption rates are not reduced again due to tolerance.

Therefore, it is not necessary to perform this cycling or intake cycles alternating with creatine rest cycles.

It is easy to think that if creatine is eliminated via the urinary tract, the kidneys may be affected. 

In studies of humans taking creatine, no markers of kidney damage have been found. No alterations in glomerular filtration rate, blood proteins or urinary proteins have been found, which leads to the conclusion that creatine is not bad for the kidneys.

Several studies have also been carried out in people with previous kidney damage, such as type II diabetes patients and haemodialysis patients, and none of them showed any worsening of kidney function.

In summary, it can be concluded that creatine does not cause kidney damage in healthy people, nor does it have any negative effects in people with impaired kidney function. In any case, it is strongly recommended that people suffering from such conditions should contact a medical professional before using creatine.