If you are someone who is seeking to increase your muscle build, you may have considered using creatine monohydrate. This is something of a hard focused topic when it comes to health and fitness.
Using Creatine For Weight Training
Many people would think it is bad, but it is simply a supplement that ensures you get everything you can out of your workout. It has a varied reputation in the world of fitness.
The thing is, you are probably ingesting creatine in some form each day, it’s naturally in foods such as steaks. Your body needs amino acids to make creatine which your muscles then use as creatine monohydrate.
So, if you decide to start taking creatine supplements, what are its benefits in weight training?
What Is Creatine?
Let’s start off by introducing you to creatine properly.
If you are using creatine to build up muscle then you will find it will help you to recover between each of your sets, so, its main feature is how it increases the speed of your recovery, which can increase how much you can do per session.
Thus, it will actually lead to you gaining faster, overall.
It has often been recorded as being probably the most successful supplement for those who wish to improve their performance in repetitive intense exercise. Even in the 70s, it was used to improve performance in the USSR and their dominance throughout the 80s and 70s in the Olympics!
What Exactly Does It Do?
This is all well and good right, but what does it REALLY do?
Well, when you combine it with weight training, it will slow the loss of your bone mass as you get older, and eases the effects of issues such as osteoarthritis, in which your joints and bones can be stiff.
However, it does have different effects on everyone, so you should not assume that it will do this for you as well.
Nor will it have an immediate effect, after doing your workouts over the course of a week, paired with the creatine supplement, you should start to see the effects in this time, as your volume of training and your strength increase.
It’s not magic though, and it does not turn fat into muscle. It simply aids in your comfort, endurance, and recovery during your workouts.
It will help your muscles to store energy, and recuperate in high-intensity workouts.
The Benefits
It all sounds great, doesn’t it? But, to give you better clarity on what it actually does, let’s take a proper, more in-depth look at its benefits for this purpose.
Helps Cells Produce More Energy
These supplements help to increase the phosphocreatine stores in them. This helps in how your body forms an important molecule that your cells use for energy storage, as well as a majority of basic life functions.
It produces energy and allows you to perform better, at a more hardcore intensity, basically, it increases the fuel in your body to do better for longer.
Supports Muscle Functioning
While its aid in energy production is key it is an overall effect on the accumulation of muscle mass. It can alter many things that will result in greater muscle growth.
An example of this is how it boosts how your body forms proteins which will create new fibers in your muscles. It can also increase the levels of your insulin, and increase how much water content is stored inside your muscles too!
Improves Performance In High-Intensity Work-Outs
It has a direct role in the production of ATP, and it can improve your high-intensity workouts in many ways, these ways can include.
- Sprinting ability (endurance).
- Recovery time.
- Ballistic power.
- Overall strength.
- Ability to resist fatigue.
- Endurance of your muscles.
- Mental performance.
While many supplements only help advanced athletes, creatine is a supplement that will aid anyone regardless of their level of fitness.
Accelerates Muscular Growth
If you were only to take creatine supplements for 5-7 days, you would really see that your lean weight and size of your muscles have increased. This startling increase is typically caused by the water content increase in your muscles.
However, in more long-term use, it will also help the fiber growth in your muscles.
If you used it for a 6-week training plan, then you could gain around 2 kg of muscle mass
Might Help In Reducing Fatigue/ Tiredness
It is also possible that creatine can help in the reduction of fatigue and tiredness, which is not surprising seeing what it does.
It may even be able to increase your energy levels when you are sleep-deprived and help those who have injuries and suffer from fatigue as a result.
It’s Just Easy
Not only is it beneficial in all these ways, but it is very safe due to extensive research and it is so easy to use as well!
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Photo by Anush Gorak