Supplementing training with Creatine

you may want to talk to scuba-punk I believe he's suplementing with creatine right now.

And in some studies it has actually been shown to adversely affect performance in endurance events.

bts

Edited by Brett 2005-01-06 10:34 PM

Good to know. Thank you for giving this information.

Thanks for the replies and advice.
After reading them I was still thinking about experimenting with it, but have decided to forget it. When I was cycling with creatine before, it was all for short-burst traing, like you said; lifting sessions and short, intense aerobic sessions. The sustained endurance training negating any positive effects bears creedence, I believe.
Thanks again!

I take 3 grams a day and find it helps. There is starting to be more information and studies on endurance/creatine. The following is an interesting article.

Can creatine help the Endurance athelete?


The answer is yes - but
Should endurance runners take creatine supplements? There is little doubt that creatine supplementation can improve the quality of endurance-runners' workouts. Several years ago, scientists from England and Estonia asked five endurance runners at Tartu University in Estonia to supplement their diets with 30 grams (six five-gram doses per day) of creatine monohydrate per day for six consecutive days. During this six-day period, five other Estonian runners of comparable ability consumed a glucose placebo instead of creatine. All runners were unaware of the true compositions of their supplements ('Creatine Propels British Athletes to Olympic Gold Medals: Is Creatine the One True Ergogenic Aid?' Running Research News, vol. 9(1), pp. 1-5, 1993).

Prior to and following the six days of supplementation, the athletes ran four 300-metre and (on a separate day) four 1000-metre intervals, with three minutes of rest between the 300-metre work intervals and four minutes of recovery after the 1000-metre reps. Creatine dramatically improved the runners' efforts. Compared to the placebo group, improvement in the final 300-metre interval (from pre- to post-supplementation) was more than twice as great for creatine users, and improvement was more than three times as great for creatine supplementers in the final 1000-metre interval. Total time required to run all four 1000-metre intervals improved from 770 to 757 seconds after creatine supplementation, a statistically significant change. Meanwhile, placebo-group members' performances remained the same (about 775 seconds for the four intervals). Creatine supplementation improved the average quality of the 1000-metre intervals by a little over three seconds.

Of course, improvements in workout quality generally lead to improvements in competitive performances. Amazingly enough, workout-quality upgrades can occur after just five to six days of creatine supplementation. This all makes creatine sound wonderful, but there's still that nagging problem of weight gain.

Will you always gain weight?
However, bear in mind that the water-retention-related gain in weight is primarily a function of the high creatine-loading doses (20 to 30 grams per day) used both in many research studies and by many athletes. In a very recent study, a lower loading dose (6g of creatine per day) produced only a one-pound gain in weight ('Why Your Creatine Consumption Is Costing You Too Much,' Running Research News, vol. 14(7), pp. 1-4, 1998).

And in fact researchers are finding that lower loading doses can be as effective as the big, 20-gram per day intakes at building up muscle creatine-phosphate concentrations, provided that the lower doses are taken over a little bit more time. Basically, the new research is revealing that six one-half gram doses of creatine per day (for a total of three grams daily) over the course of about 30 days will build muscle-creatine concentrations to a level comparable to that achieved with the whopping 20-gram ingestions. Very importantly, these three-gram per day intakes appear to be associated with very little water retention and weight gain.

Thus, it appears that creatine monohydrate can be a performance-boosting (and legal) supplement for endurance runners. The best way to take it is to simply sprinkle about a half-gram of the stuff on some food (and then of course eat the creatine and comestible) six times per day. Little creatine will be lost in the urine and faeces, creating a very economical intake pattern, little weight will be gained, and the resulting heightened intramuscular creatine-phosphate concentration should have a direct, positive impact on the quality of your high-intensity training sessions. Since intensity is the most potent producer of running fitness, your creatine-boosted sessions should eventually lead to some very nice PBs.

Bear in mind that there's no need for you to buy 'special' creatine. 'Micronized' creatine and any commercial creatine product which supposedly can be absorbed more readily offers no special advantages; in fact, as the rate of creatine absorption increases, the urinary losses of creatine become greater.

First of all, this study really doesn't show the benefit of increased performance for indurance training, since the distances, IMO, are far from what I would call endurance running.

But @#$%!
Now there's that spark of interest again, debating with myself if a small experiment is in order.
Thanks alot!

As far as loading, I found that in all my previous cycles, loading with 30+G/day did add to a small gain from water retention, but 2-3 lbs on a 160lb frame is negligible, particularly when initiating hard training where I found in a few weeks I'd peel off fat in amounts greater than what the water gain was, the net effect being I was at a lower body weight in the end.
I also found the initial "bloating" to subside over a couple of weeks.
This is all relative to how lean you are in the first place, whereas someone with a composition of 30% BF would not see as great a change as someone, say, at 10% BF, who would gain alot more water weight due to muscle mass in relation to body fat and also actually appear more bloated.

Then again, I may sound like I'm just talking out of my a$$.

I only know my experiences with it, from taking it at both high and low body fat composition weights, as well as pre and post gaining approx 20 lbs in muscle mass.

So, perhaps I shall seek out a cheap source locally today and try a cycle to see if my stamina/endurance benefits.

Thanks for your opinion!

Is it Metre or Meter? I'm confused.

Supplementing with creatine for endurance performance is nonsense.

1. Creatine has never been shown to show ANY benefit above 1000M, and then only *barely* at 1000M, in some studies by a second or two.

2. There is an increasing benefit with decreasing distance, peaking with true sprint events.

Creatine works by re-generating the ATP your muscles need when exercising over a period where there is an insignificant contribution from aerobic production of ATP. In other words, it works for sprints....like the 100M.
I review much of the literature in my book (out in 2 weeks), but you can actually find many of the papers on your own (for free) by going on pubmed and doing a search. I really encourage people to do this when evaluating supplements...you'd be surprised at how few manufacturers claims have been evaluated by objective scientists.

For example, "Optygen" still claims all sorts of VO2 benefits, even though there was a very nice study out last year showing no benefit in endurance cycling performance. What's more, there isn't even any legitimate mechanism of action whereby it even *could * help. Just a manufacturer's say-so.

People may *think* something helps, or *feel* it helps, but this does not equal reality under laboratory, or even field conditions. Spend your money on something that WILL help your performance, like a healthy breakfast.



Phil

Edited by PhysFarm 2005-01-07 10:44 AM

I have been supplementing with creatine (about 5gm daily), but not neccessarily for tri-specific reasons. I really wanted to concentrate on 2 things this off season:
1 - Become a better runner. If I can keep from hurting myself, I'm well on my way to achieving that goal.
2 - The other thing was to build upper body strength by increasing my muscle mass.

I did my research and found enough information (even if a lot was anecdotal) that said that it would help me be able to push more weight and recover more quickly in order to keep from hurting myself and speed the muscle building. Plus, I don't need to worry about "shrinkage" like you would with steroids

So will my increased upper body strength help my tri performance? Who knows, but I'm also enjoying some gains in leg muscle growth too, so maybe it will help me run and cycle faster (not because of the creatine, but from the increase in strength and therefore leg power). I know strong legs and back help me haul the weight of myself plus the 100+ pounds of dive gear to the water

Having said all that, I'm not looking for tri-clyde podium domination. I'm just trying to be healthy enough to do the diving I want to be able to do, so for me it was the right choice. I also take a multivitamin every day along with oil capsules on days that I don't eat any oily fish, so maybe I'm one of those "supplement wacknuts." I have neither the time or the inclination to do double blind scientific studies on myself, so I just follow the immortal words of Sheck Exley - "What works, works."

-Frank

Scuba -

Taking a multi-vitamin and 5 grams of creatine (a mainenance dose) doesn't qualify you as a supplement junkie.  You need to start taking things like shark cartilage and things that don't have real names, just lots of letters, like INXT+. (just kidding of course)

Creatine definitely helps you have a better weight lifting workout because lifting weights uses that short term energy cycle.

As far as building muscle mass and endurance training, I asked that question on Dr. Phil's forum (www.physfarm.com) and got a pretty extensive and interesting answer.

Edited by Gatsby 2005-01-07 11:36 AM

Actually (and unfortunately, in my opinion) strength training does nothing to improve endurance performance, unless you are a couch potato to begin with. Well, let me qualify that. The literature is currently 3 to 1 *against* strength training improving endurance performance. The reason is this: your body adapts so precisely to the exercise you do that there is really no crossover benefit between sports, even sports that use almost exactly the same muscles (like cycling and running)! For example, a study comparing national class cyclists to state class cyclists showed that:

1) national class riders had been training longer, and were fitter than the state class riders; however

2) when tested running, they all were about the same; thus

3) no amount of "cross training" (cycling) will make you a better runner

More on point (and for a slightly more complicated explanation) research has shown that strength is not the limiter to power output in endurance exercise. There is a nice review written by John Hawley on www.sportsci.org, and a slightly more complicated explanation that that in a short piece written by andy coggan ph.d. on strength and cycling performance that you can probably google someplace. Basically, much of strength is the result of your nervous system adapting to make the muscles fire better/more synchronously/in better coordination. An example I like to use is that if you weight lift for 3 weeks, you will probably see an increase in strength of 10-20%, but you have no measureable increase in muscle size. So the improvement is on the part of your brain/nervous system telling your muscles how to do ONE thing better, specifically.

You can read a more detailed explanation on the forum on my site ( www.physfarm.com ) where someone recently asked the question re: weightlifting and endurance (marathon) performance. It is less complicated than the stuff Hawley and Coggan wrote, but also not as exhaustive.

Your comment about injury prevention is right on, and I encourage most athletes to continue a program of light weights to improve range of motion, connective tissue strength, etc. I would just be sure not to lift to the point that you 1) significantly increase your mass or 2) generate fatigue significant enough that your actual tri-specific workouts are not as good as they should be.

FWIW,

Phil

Thanks for the info Doc. What I didn't say before is that the tri stuff, though important to me, is a teenie part of my life. I like swimming and cycling and yes, even running, so triathlon seemed to be the best idea for me to keep me honest with my work outs that I am doing for the sole purpose of being a fit diver. I don't think I could stand to do any of them at the exclusion of the others. My true goal is this; I want to be strong enough to haul myself and my gear to the water on a 100+ degree Fahrenheit day in August while wearing a drysuit and 400g thinsulate undergarments without having a heart attack, aneurism or a stroke To be honest with you, my biggest struggle has been finding balance in all of this - for example I want to have a strong enough back and upper body to carry a set of doubled steel tanks in each hand without permanent physiological damage, but I also need to remain flexible enough to be able to reach behind my shoulders to manipulate my tank valves while wearing a drysuit and thick gloves - plus, the cardio conditioning is one of the best things that I can do for myself to help keep my cool and not go into full panic mode when trying to swim against a current faster than a knot or two. For me, tri training for has been the best way that I've found to achieve that balance and get fit - someone else's reason for do triathlon could certainly be different. Yes, I absolutely started out as a couch potato (as close to 400 pounds and anyone should ever get) and 9 months later I still look like one but much closer to 300 pounds, so I am trying to build all of the mass that my genetics will allow without looking like Mr. Olympia (again, that pesky balance thing) - so if I have a crappy run or bike ride because of a breakthrough strength session I'm not going to lose any sleep over it - I'm just looking for a healthy finish. Plus, at the same time putting in the effort, through Martial Arts, to work on my spiritual (not talking religion) health too - things such as mood and self worth. So in the end, yes, the workouts I do are going to help me get to the starting line on race day, but for me, where it counts, and the reason I do all of this, is to get to a different starting line - the transom of a dive boat. I just wanted to make sure you know where I'm coming from before anyone thinks that I'm trying to give out any exercise physiology info... Dive physiology is another matter entirely

Oh, and Gatsby, shark cartalage is the bane of my existance I won't patronise GNC because they sell that crap. Such a waste of an awesome creature.

Sorry gyanwn, back to your thread...

-Frank

Well, in your case...yes, I would recommend all the strength training you can stand

I'm still trying to find time to get scuba certified, by the way.

Phil

alas, a can of worms as I suspected...

I have no scientific backing to this statement, but I after taking creatine I looked more like a linebacker than a triathlete.

So PhysFarm, if I understand you right, it sounds like what you are saying is if a given athlete wants to get better at a particular sport, the level of skill in that particular sport must go up, not necessarily the level of athleticism?

Cool, thanks again for your input. I think it's great that we are slowly building a base of "Body of Knowledge Experts" here on BT. As beginners, we tend to read books, try stuff, share anecdotal evidence of what works or doesn't work for us and keeping muddling around. I really enjoy it when someone can point me to a study that I can read and learn something new from.



Definitely take whatever chance you can get. If you are anywhere close to me (or at least near the east coast of the US), drop me a PM. I have connections up and down the east coast, so I'd be glad to help you find a decent instructor. It's one of the coolest things in the world as far as I'm concerned



No can of worms here. I for one, have learned a lot because you asked your question. We're all here to learn. Now, if someone had call someone else a raging fascist, that would have been a can of worms

-Frank

Chucky,

Sort of. What I am getting at is that to get better at something, your skill/fitness/athleticism must improve in *that particular sport*. In other words, playing a lot of tennis will make you a good tennis player, but will not transfer to make you a better power forward the next time you play basketball. Your brain, nervous system, and muscles adapt so specifically that it is difficult to detect transfer. No one would deny that a wrestler like rulon gardner is a great athlete, but you'r probably kick his butt in a 5k, and he'd probably tear your arms off in a wrestling match.

Now, all of my examples are talking about people who have been athletic/training at their particular sport(s) for at least a little while. The example I always use is the couch potato who starts lifting weights. If we took our potato and made him run a mile, and recorded the time, he would probably be pretty slow. Then, let's make him lift weights for a month or two. Then, make him run the mile again and record the time. What you will find is that he runs faster than before, even without specific training, because you started with someone who was *so* out of shape that you saw improvement based on improving overall fitness. If you are doing tri's, you are already a lot fitter than the couch potato, and so lifing would not make a detectable change in your abilities as a triathlete.

Phil

That's fine...except lots of people don't like my opinion of many supplements, because many of them don't work as advertised! ;-)

phil

Ok, Dr. Phil,
can you back up a statement I made while arguing with a salesperson at GNC about the effectiveness of human growth hormone as an oral supplement? I told him that it was essentially worthless if taken orally, as the low stomach pH would pretty much denature the crap out of it. He was greatly disappointed. I am a biochemist, and happen to do research on hGH, so I figured I was right, but I think you would know better! (I went in to buy vitamin C crystals, btw)
thanks,
Katie

Being a biochemist that works on HGH, I suspect you'd know better than me!

That being said, there are hormone formulations that make it through the stomach, for example, contraceptive pills. That said, I suspect that since all the pharmaceutical HGH must be administered by needle (and correct me if that has changed, I haven't done endocrinology in a while), I'd say that the oral route was a no-go.

Phil