I started taking a scoop of the Creatine Hydrate from Costco every afternoon because why not. Wife had bought it and the bag was sitting right there.
I honestly don't know whether it made a difference. Sleep didn't get worse, no noticeable metabolic effects. Possibly the "perma tired muscles" I've been suffering from increasingly since about age 57 (I'm an active cyclist) have gotten a bit better, with <50% of days affected rather than >90% last year, but even that is subjective.
If "taking the stuff" means "more uptake" (does it?) and there are other beneficial effects, bring it on.
It sounds you have the hardest part of it underway - consistency.
There's lots of studies - if you can get over 20g per day it is noticeable to the brain and energy. Adding a few grams a week until you're up there I found it noticeable. 20-30g seems to be a noticeable range.
Supplements aren't always like a coffee spike, they build up and sustain quite well.
20g is a loading dose (typically for a week), then it's 3-5g daily for maintenance. But I've seen studies that 5g daily catches up to the 20g loading dose after about a month.
Yeah pretty much this. I took creatine back in high school/college to build muscle mass. In those days we would load with 20g for a week -> then do 5g for 8 weeks -> cycle off for two weeks -> repeat.
I'm back on it now for endurance sports (trail running + cycling) and the advice is to just take 5g a day and don't worry about cycling off. At 5g/day it takes 4-6 weeks to saturate your muscles.
It does have a noticeable impact on water retention, so this year I cycled off six weeks away from my "A" race and lost 5lbs of water weight. It was a 100 mile mountain ultra so I thought the extra pop on the climbs probably wasn't worth the extra weight over the entire course (but probably was worth it while doing hill reps in training). Next year I'm sticking to shorter stuff where I'll run up more climbs. For those I don't plan to cycle off.
MarkusWandel · · focus · HN ↗
I honestly don't know whether it made a difference. Sleep didn't get worse, no noticeable metabolic effects. Possibly the "perma tired muscles" I've been suffering from increasingly since about age 57 (I'm an active cyclist) have gotten a bit better, with <50% of days affected rather than >90% last year, but even that is subjective.
If "taking the stuff" means "more uptake" (does it?) and there are other beneficial effects, bring it on.
j45 · · focus · HN ↗
It sounds you have the hardest part of it underway - consistency.
There's lots of studies - if you can get over 20g per day it is noticeable to the brain and energy. Adding a few grams a week until you're up there I found it noticeable. 20-30g seems to be a noticeable range.
Supplements aren't always like a coffee spike, they build up and sustain quite well.
Yajirobe · · focus · HN ↗
kenhwang · · focus · HN ↗
sh-run · · focus · HN ↗
I'm back on it now for endurance sports (trail running + cycling) and the advice is to just take 5g a day and don't worry about cycling off. At 5g/day it takes 4-6 weeks to saturate your muscles.
It does have a noticeable impact on water retention, so this year I cycled off six weeks away from my "A" race and lost 5lbs of water weight. It was a 100 mile mountain ultra so I thought the extra pop on the climbs probably wasn't worth the extra weight over the entire course (but probably was worth it while doing hill reps in training). Next year I'm sticking to shorter stuff where I'll run up more climbs. For those I don't plan to cycle off.
ffsm8 · · focus · HN ↗
If you're only after the lifting benefits, 3-5g/day is sufficient.
Sammi · · focus · HN ↗