depends on the athlete, creatine offers little to resistance-trained individuals but works wonders on novices
I agree with Jamie and would add that the efficacy of creatine appears to dependent both upon the individual and the sport. My experience with wrestlers (particularly in their weight management routine) is that creatine complicates their regiment, particularly implicating dehydration factors during intensive training. Found that use of creatine on the day of competition seems more beneficial, though difficult to truly measure. I suppose that where athlete's body mass index is critical to performance (e.g. wrestlers, gymnasts,swimmers) creatine "loading" has to be viewed in a different training context. Over the course of the last 5 - 7 years I have seen 4 liver failures (requiring hospitalization) in wrestlers who were loading AND trying to drop their BDI.
Just to add an anecdotal note, keep a look out for headaches while athletes take creatine. Personally, and I know of others, I suffer from frequent (about once to twice a week, compared with none usually) headaches while taking creatine.
Dear Mario Roska,
I hope this article will help u:
Int J Sports Med. 1993 Sep;14 Suppl 1:S24-8.
Metabolic and hormonal reactions during training in junior oarsmen.
Steinacker JM, Laske R, Hetzel WD, Lormes W, Liu Y, Stauch M.
https://www.thieme-connect.com/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-2007-1021219
Best regards,
Over time if the goal is simply to increase the muscle creatine stores then I don't think it really matters about the timing. There seems to be a ceiling effect to the increase in muscle of around 150-160 mmol/kgdm in any case, although I have seen the odd value higher than this.
I addressed this in great detail previously from a biochemical and physiological approach. At least it has been the most effective for me. Please see the following link
https://word.office.live.com/wv/WordView.aspx?FBsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdownload%2Ffile_preview.php%3Fid%3D557789190915721%26time%3D1371606950%26metadata&access_token=818785229%3AAVJPZtIzxaaOGQYGeDUjb0kqhmEACtha_FVUaGAWaQM-DA&title=How+to+Get+the+Most+Out+of+Creatine.docx
I would strongly disagree with the comment regarding efficacy in novices versus trained athletes. I understand the point that PCr levels are not as high in the untrained and therefore they are more susceptible to potential gains, but here's another way of looking at the practicality of that philosophy.
1) Any gains in novices will be almost completely overshadowed (in a sense) by the massive training effects they are going to see anyways with proper training.
2) Fictional numbers of course....a 10% difference (choose your parameter of choice) in a novice is much less meaningful than a 1% difference in the elite, as one is going from "not so great" to "still not so great but better" while the other is going from tenth place to a gold medal.
3) Hypothetical: You run the risk of novices relying on the supplement as opposed to developing the best work ethic possible, which may bite them in the *** later. I know many athletes who start being less diligent regarding diet when they cycle in supplements.
4) I would say trained vegetarians (or at least those who eat lower on the food chain most of the time) will have the most 'fruitful' gains, as the effect sizes will be greater when PCr levels are lower (as in vegans/vegetarians) + the effect won't be overshadowed by the training gains, as they will be slight in the trained.
Just an opinion....
in addition to the aformentioned comments, I would add:
- that a large volume of scientific literature dealing with Cr supplementation reported diverging conclusion.
- that among the different Cr loading programmes; the most common programme involves an initial loading phase of 20 g/day for 5-7 days, followed by a maintenance phase of 3-5 g/day for differing periods of time (1 week to 6 months).
- that Cr does significantly impact force production regardless of sport, sex or age when maximal force or strength (dynamic or isotonic contractions) is the outcome measure.
- that it is less evident when investigating isokinetic force production as well as for isometric muscular performance.
- that, based on intensity and duration of the exercises, there is contradictory evidence relative to both continuous and intermittent endurance activities.
- that beyond Cr supplementation, suspicious activities could be related (are all Cr products well controlled and in agreement with anti-doping labels, e.g. sport-protect?). When using with novices or young population (see comment above), emergence of potential adverse effects of such supplementation could be suspected as a doping attitude.
Overall, I would recommend high caution when using Cr supplementation. There is a myriad of training methods which received scientific relevance in order to enhance improvements...
Much will depend on the type of training is interesting objectified the daily dosage be accompanied by a nutritionist.
recommend reading the study Enhancing Resistance Training Results With
Protein / Carbohydrate Supplementation. by Wayne L. Westcott, Ph.D., CSCS and Rita La Rosa Loud, BS To better ilucidação facts.
At first you should do the loading phase ( 5 days, for times a day), then continue 2 times in a day. The first in the morning and the second after training. I hope this answer be clear.
Here is a recent article on creatine timing in JISSN by Jose Antonio showing post- workout creatine timing is superior ot pre-workout ingestion:
http://www.jissn.com/content/10/1/36