
What does creatine monohydrate powder do?
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If you’re a hybrid athlete or an active gym goer, you may have come into contact with someone who takes creatine monohydrate powder or had a conversation about it. The truth is that creatine is such a popular supplement that the global market in 2023 was valued at $0.54 billion USD alone, and it’s only growing.
This natural amino acid is taking the world by storm not just being in demand for athletes and fitness enthusiasts but everyday go getters too. In this post, find out everything you need to know about creatine, its benefits and how to consume it safely.
What is creatine?
Before jumping right into the topic of creatine monohydrate powder, let’s first define what creatine is. While we quickly just covered it above, let’s zone in on a bit more detail. Creatine is a compound naturally found in your body and comes from three amino acids: arginine, glycine and methionine.
Creatine is mainly found in your body’s muscles, brain, seafood, and red meat. Approximately 95% of creatine is stored in your skeletal muscle; however, other organs like your kidneys, liver, and pancreas also make creatine, but in small amounts.
Now, regarding your body, there are two types that exist in your muscles: creatine phosphate and phosphocreatine. These help you make adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a form of energy required by your muscle cells when you undergo activity.
In other words, think of creatine as an energy source for exercise.
What is creatine monohydrate powder?
Now that you know what creatine is, you’re probably thinking, what is creatine monohydrate powder? Creatine monohydrate powder is a dietary supplement that helps regenerate ATP and improves your performance aerobically and anaerobically. While there are various types, creatine monohydrate is the best to use.
Is creatine monohydrate powder safe?
Creatine monohydrate is safe to use if it’s taken in the right amounts. The International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) even deems it so. It’s also the most well-researched creatine supplement, and over 1000 studies have been conducted on its benefits.
Other forms of creatine, such as creatine serum, creatine citrate, creatine nitrate, and creatine ethyl ester, lack consistent scientific research to support muscle storage and performance.
The right dosage of creatine monohydrate in a safe and healthy form is between 3 and 5 grams per day. If you haven’t taken it before, we recommend starting with 3 grams and then gradually increasing to 5, if needed.
What are the benefits of creatine monohydrate powder?
There are a ton of benefits associated with taking creatine monohydrate powder, such as the following:
1. Helps produce more energy
Let’s start with the most well-known one: creatine monohydrate powder can help you feel more energised to push that last rep, km and give it all in your workouts. Creatine supplements, especially monohydrate, help increase your phosphocreatine store, enhancing the formation of ATP to fuel your muscles during high-intensity hybrid training.
2. Can greatly increase high intensity performance
As creatine helps with ATP production, it can significantly improve HIIT workouts. Part of the reason for this is creatine helps improve your:
- Strength
- Sprinting ability
- Muscle endurance
- Ballistic power
- Recovery
3. Supports brain function
One of the biggest benefits of creatine, which is becoming more popular, is the cognitive support it can provide. It increases the phosphocreatine stores in your brain, helping you maintain cellular energy and reducing the risk of neurological damage and neurodegenerative diseases.
Research also shows that it can help reduce age-related muscle and strength loss in older people. Studies have also been conducted showing that creatine may help slow down the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, and support epilepsy, brain, ischemic stroke, and brain and spinal cord injuries.
4. Helps increase muscle mass
Creatine monohydrate supports a variety of muscle functions, one major one being helping increase muscle mass. It helps increase the number of proteins in your muscle, leading to a greater size of muscle fibres.
Creatine is known to increase the water content in your muscles (cell volumisation), increasing muscle size. Some research also shows that creatine can help decrease the levels of myostatin (a molecule that stunts muscle growth), helping you build muscles faster.
This can be ideal if you’re a hybrid athlete, as increased muscle mass promotes joint stability, increase your metabolism, and help with fast-twitch muscle fibres.
5. Enhances aerobic exercise
If you’re a long-distance runner or cyclist or love to dedicate hours to your training, creatine can be highly beneficial. Not only does it help with ATP production, but it enhances the efficiency of moving between cells, adding an edge for endurance-based training. This potentially allows you to give your best consistently for longer periods.
6. Aids recovery
Creatine monohydrate powder can also support muscle recovery by helping you reduce muscle damage and encouraging faster recovery times. Creatine can support heavier and increased training loads without feeling subject to overtraining.
How to use creatine monohydrate powder?
When it comes to taking creatine monohydrate powder, you may find a range of various recommendations. However, at Go Nutrition, we advise starting with a daily dose of 3 grams and dissolving it in water, juice, or your protein shake.
Whenever possible, try dissolving it into a drink with natural sugars, as your muscles can more easily absorb creatine when insulin is available. However, its use is equally effective without sugar drinks.
Note: Creatine monohydrate powder does not provide IMMEDIATE results it takes around 2-4 weeks to notice the benefits. It should be consumed on both training and rest days.
Who should take creatine supplements?
Creatine can benefit those 18 years and older. It can particularly benefit those who undergo strength, endurance, or hybrid training. If you have performance goals of increasing your power, strength, and agility, it can be a great addition to your diet.
Try Go Nutrition Creatine
Save time searching online for creatine supplements, try our top creatine monohydrate powder. Engineered can help give you the extra edge in your fitness, intensity level and lifestyle. It’s formulated in accordance with state of the art scientific research, to support increased strength output, muscle mass, intensity and recovery.
The creatine monohydrate powder we have at Go Nutrition is premium grade and unflavoured perfect for mixing in a range of different drinks. However to note its benefits we recommend it only being used in consumption with a nutritious and healthy diet.
Want to see how else you can go further with your training? Check out our range of supplements.