a little creatine confusion

[derK]

hi,

i'm using cell-tech creatine and it says to do a loading stage (2 servings a day = 4 scoops in total) for 5 days and ONLY 5 days. When i bought this stuff, the guy at the counter told me that i should not really bother with their instructions and just go ahead and take it twice everyday even on off days just to keep your creatine levels up. SO, should i:

1)drink it 30 min before workout AND drink it again 8 hours later
2)drink it 30 min before workout

i was on SAN v12 turbo before for about 2 weeks but i noticed no gains so maybe i've been taking creatine wrong. So maybe you guys can give me a little advice.

thanks.

Derek

[Vido]

The more often you take it, the faster you run out = more sales for the salesman.

Your muscles can only hold so much creatine. Once they are saturated (after the loading period...which isn't even necessary but that's another topic altogether), as little as 2g/day should keep them full.

Btw, don't buy Cell-tech again. Look at the ingredients and you'll notice that you can buy the individual components of the formula and make your own "Cell-tech" for half the price.

[darkdan]

Also, I think each serving of cell-tech is 10 grams of creatine. Which is double what most people here recommend.

Remember the days when people were taking 40 grams of the stuff a day for 2 weeks to load? lol. I really should have bought some GNC stock in the mid-90s.

[derK]

so how do you guys consume your creatine??? before a workout and that's it??? or do you do it before a workout and sometime after in the day, so you're drinking it twice a day????

[geoffgarcia]

I dont think there is any benefit in taking it around a workout (pre/post)
just take it whenever is most convenient...

I try to take 5g daily, but I dont sweat it if I miss a day or two per week
these articles are questionable...but there doesn't seem to be any harm in taking creatine with dextrose...so therefore I take mine post workout in a dosing format as described below...

Creatine
Creatine-dextrose and protein-dextrose induce similar strength gains during training (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11740297&dopt=Abstract)
for the study they used 10g of creatine mono + 75g of glucose


http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/catcrea.htm
Dextrose is higher glycemic and causes longer and higher insulin spikes than say fructose or sucrose.
It's the highest glycemic natural sugar. Even at that, the largest part of the insulin boost will be gone by the time the creatine reaches the muscle.
Dextrose makes the creatine more expensive because pharmaceutical-grade dextrose isn't cheap and you need a lot of it.

What is effective?
Isn't it plain to the eye that you need to create an insulin spike when the creatine reaches the muscle? Well, I did the research myself on a total of 25 subjects, 10 taking creatine with grape juice, 8 taking it with OJ and extra OJ at 20,30 and 40 minutes after ingestion, and the last 7 taking it with milk and drinking OJ at 20, 30 and 40 minutes after ingestion.
The result was overwhelming. The second and third group gained 92 and 83 percent more muscle mass over a period of 8 weeks. I opted for OJ because not everyone is a big fan of grape juice, but I would guess using the same amounts of grape juice would create greater insulin spikes and be more effective.
Using dextrose could be amazingly effective, at 3 doses of 20g
20, 30 and 40 minutes after ingestion.edited for size/content

[waynis]

theres no point in loading.. which someone mentioned you can only consume a certain amount at a time. I would take 5 grams a day. thats it. split it from before and after workout