How to Take Creatine

Creatine is one of the most popular workout supplements ever to grace the shelves of a health food store. Creatine's effects have been widely circulated in the press and for good reason. Put simply, creatine works and it works well. For anybody who is interested in increasing the amount of weight they can lift quickly and naturally, creatine is the go-to supplement. Coupled with enough protein in the diet, creatine can help anybody get over frustrating workout plateaus and increase strength quickly and effectively. Creatine helps the body to rebuild the torn muscle fibers more quickly, allowing for more improved subsequent workouts. In addition, creatine allows the muscles to look fuller and more inflated, though this is mainly a cosmetic effect achieved through water displacement. At any rate, creatine has been proven to work wonders for anybody hoping to take their weightlifting routine to the next level.

Anybody curious about how to take creatine properly is exercising prudent judgement and should be commended as such is the case. Taking too much or too little of any supplement will render that supplement dangerous or ineffective, respectively. Too much creatine in the body may cause damage to the liver and, in some cases, can cause the liver to actually shut down. Too little creatine is not as harmful, but just as worthless.

Most people, when telling you how to take creatine, will suggest what is called "creatine loading". This is a process wherein you take four or five servings of creatine a day, usually in four hour increments, for about four or five days. After that, you are supposed to take one dose of creatine per day for about a month and, after that month is up, repeat the loading process. The process of creatine loading is sworn by widely in many magazines and from first person testimonials. This process, while popular, hasn't been completely proven to be better than taking one serving of creatine a day. In the end, it is usually a matter of personal preference. Some people find that creatine works better for them when they include a loading phase, while others see it as ineffective and a waste of perfectly good creatine. Sadly, there are no real answers, though taking five grams a day of creatine (the average serving size) doesn't seem to be any less effective than creatine loading. Anybody wondering how to take creatine should try both ways, and decide for themselves which is the better option.