3 Surprising Effects Creatine Has On Your Body In 30 Days

3 Surprising Effects Creatine Has On Your Body In 30 Days

Jeremy Ethier is a fitness instructor and influencer best known for his YouTube channel which has amassed over 5 million subscribers. In this post, Jeremy discusses the effects of taking creatine supplements on the body, including muscle growth, improved performance, and potential cognitive benefits.

Effects of Creatine on the Body

“Creatine has been consistently proven to make you look bigger, build muscle faster, improve your performance, and even make you smarter. In fact, over 50 percent of professional power athletes such as powerlifters, boxers, and track and field athletes reportedly use creatine for these reasons.”

“But what exactly does creatine do to your body and where does it go? What should you expect to feel and how soon? Is it safe and are there any side effects you should know about? How do you know if it’s working or not?”

“Today, we’ll cover all that by doing a deep dive into what to expect throughout your first 30 days of taking creatine.”

What is Creatine?

“Creatine is a substance that we naturally produce and use up as an indirect energy source to power our muscles through high-intensity activities such as sprints or a tough set of bench presses. For this reason, we store most of our creatine in our muscles.”

“Although we have a baseline level of creatine in our muscles, supplementing with it can actually increase our baseline levels by about 30 percent. As a result, our muscles have more creatine to power them with, leading to more strength and muscle mass over time”

Creatine Saturation

“So when you first start taking creatine it takes time for your muscles to become fully saturated with that additional creatine. Although you will experience a few side effects throughout this period, you won’t experience the performance benefits until full saturation.”

“There’s two ways you can start taking creatine. You can do what’s known as a loading phase where you take quite a bit of creatine every day to increase your stores as fast as possible and then decrease the dose to maintain the elevated levels. Using this method, it’ll take about seven days to fully saturate your muscles and that is when you can start experiencing some of its benefits.”

“The other method is to just take a baseline dose of creatine every day to slowly increase your creatine levels. Often, it takes about two to three weeks to reach full saturation.”

“Both methods get you to the same end destination but will differ in some of the side effects you may experience.”

Creatine Side-Effects on the Body Within the First 30 Days

creatine effects on the body

“Now as for what to expect in terms of what you will feel, side effects, and how to tell if it’s actually working, let’s dive into our 30 day timeline.”

Water Retention

“One of the side effects most people experience during the saturation phase is water retention and a small spike in their body weight. This is because when creatine is taken into a muscle cell it also draws water into that cell. Although this may sound like a bad thing, it can actually make your muscles look and feel a lot fuller.”

Stomach Discomfort

“Another often reported side effect throughout the saturation phase is stomach discomfort. If you experience this or you want to avoid experiencing it in the first place, there are a few things you can do.”

“First off, research has shown that stomach discomfort is more likely to occur when larger amounts of creatine are taken all at once such as with a loading phase. So if you’re using a loading protocol, splitting up your creatine into multiple smaller doses throughout the day may help.”

Increased Creatinine Levels

“Alright, so the last side effect you and your doctor should know about has to do with your creatinine levels. Nope, not creatine. Creatinine.”

“Creatinine is a breakdown product of creatine. Since you’re taking more creatine your creatinine levels will also slightly increase. And since high creatinine levels can indicate impaired kidney function, this can be alarming to see on a blood test.”

“If you’re not aware of it however creatine has been consistently proven to be a safe supplement for healthy individuals and your health professional should be aware of its effect on creatinine. But as with any blood test results, please consult with your health professional and follow their guidance.”

How Creatine Benefits The Body

what are the effects of creatine on the body and its benefits

Improved Strength

“Alright, so our muscles are now locked and loaded with creatine. What happens now? Are you gonna turn into the Hulk overnight? Let’s see what the science has to say.”

“First off, your strengths should start increasing across most of your movements. A meta-analysis reviewing 22 creatine studies found that on average train lifters can expect roughly an 8% boost in strength and 14% boost in number of reps performed.”

Less experienced lifters, however, seem to reap even larger benefits. with one study showing an average performance increase of 30 percent in untrained individuals. This could mean going from benching 100 pounds to 130 pounds as a result of creatine. That said, even just a slight increase in your strength or reps performed is a very solid return as far as supplements go and can lead to significantly greater muscle mass over time.”

Creatine Speeds Workout Recovery Time

“In addition to just improving performance, however, a study that surveyed 52 NCAA athletes found that 81 percent of them reported faster recovery from their training as one of the benefits they noticed after taking creatine.”

Creatine May Improve Brain Function

“Lastly, a relatively new yet exciting area of creatine research has to do with its benefits on brain function. Believe it or not, your brain is one of the most metabolically active tissues in the body. It is in constant need of energy and seems to rely heavily on creatine for that energy.”

“In fact, when children are born with a creatine deficiency in the brain, severe effects on cognitive function and development are often observed.”

“With healthy individuals, creatine supplementation can actually further increase brain creatine levels by up to 10 percent which seems to have positive effects on how well the brain functions. Illustrating this is a recent systematic review that found creatine supplementation to consistently improve performance on short-term memory and tests of intelligence.”

Learn More

Creatine Monohydrate Vs HCL – Which Is Better?

Top 5 Best Creatine Benefits – Health, Strength, And Performance

How Does Creatine Work? The What, Why, And How Of Creatine

Does Creatine Make You Gain Weight? Or Lose Weight?

Top 3 Must-Have Pre-Workout Ingredients That Work

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