Creatine and gymnastics

Hi everyone

I am interested to hear from people who have used Creatine as supplement to enhance their gymnastics performance. Of particular interest are people who have used it to help them with strength skill like planches, crosses etc.

At the moment experimenting Kre-Alkalyn to see if it will help me get my cross. I am through week 2 of using it, and i can't be sure a the moment of what benefit it has had. The result of my investigation will be published in the GymCoach Journal when i complete this 4 week cycle.

Does anyone have any experience with creatine and gymnastics? would love to hear what your experience was like

Generally, it's a no.

While creatine can help you get that "one extra rep" in a set, you will put on additional weight because creatine draws water into the muscles with it. Generally, the extra weight is more detrimental than pushing out that one extra rep.

But it's worth a shot. Some people don't put on as much water weight (their cells are probably already almost full of creatine) and would receive some comparable benefits. It's not a miracle drug or anything as you know.

I just got done with a 6 week cycle and all I noticed was an increase in recovery ability and a bigger 'pump' after my workouts. I didnt notice any water retention or bloat or any of the other reported side effects. It was nothing spectacular but I did notice the difference.

I just started a cycle with Beta Alanine and I will let you know how that works in about 5 more weeks.

So far with the Beta Alanine I got a very minor tingling sensation but not as dramatic as some people have reported. I only had this feeling the first 2-3 days taking it after that no other side effects. Everything I have read about it says it takes about 2 weeks for you to really benefit from it so I will report back in 3.

Both are cheep so I thought I would try them just to see.

You might want to increase your study time to 6 weeks just to give it more time build up in your system.

Good luck with it.

Two weeks cycle is enough because point of creatin is that your body cells are full with it. 2 weeks time is enough to fill it to full.

I'm taking it for regeneration and there is no such bi body weight increase (in average max o,5 kilos).

Gregor have you found that by taking it you have gotten stronger. than if you did not taken it? How much do you take on workdays and how much on rest days?

Gregor said:

Two weeks cycle is enough because point of creatin is that your body cells are full with it. 2 weeks time is enough to fill it to full.

I'm taking it for regeneration and there is no such bi body weight increase (in average max o,5 kilos).

Yeah there is bodyweight increase. Some get more than others though... yours is fairly low.

I've known a couple guys who put on ~10 lbs/4.5kg

monohydrate tends to put on more water weight.... and i do know cell tech tends to put on a lot of water weight... but i would check... there might be something else in the supplement that causes water retention or maybe a dietary change...

ethyl ester and kre-alkalyn are not suppose to put on significant water weight...

i find creatine benifical to my training... it helps keep me from feeling flat...

10 g on a working days and 5 g on a off day. No I didn't notice, because I'm using it all the time and if I did, it's so long time ago that I don't remember. It's certenly good for regeneration.

I have heard of people in sports with weight divisions might take it on the "off season", this will add the water weight but possibly/hopefully improve their strength and/or muscle development. Then they might cut back or give it up when they are coming into the competition season, then they will loose the water weight, but will hopefully be stronger than if they had gone through the same period of time without supplementing the creatine. Sort of similar to bodybuilders "bulking and cutting" with food.

I was wondering for a gymnast the water additional water weight might be similar to doing weighted exercises, then if you stop and loose the water weight you could find the same moves much easier. I do a lot of weighted chinups, I do bodyweight only ones to warm up and find them very easy after being so used to weighted ones.

extra weight would only hinder a gymnasts ability to learn and train new skills.

The Kre-Alkalyn draws minimal water, because you're taking a tenth of the amount of monohydrate you would need to get the same amount absorbed into the body. Instead you just get extra creatine in your muscles, no nasty creatinine build-up so it is easy on the kidneys too. That's the deal! You better be careful with the dosing, you will get a killer, killer headache if you take too much. Just remember that 1 gram of krealkalyn gets almost completely absorbed, over 90 percent absorption rate. You would need to take 9-10 grams of monohydrate to absorb the same amount of creatine into your muscles as you would absorb from 1 gram of kre-alkalyn. And the powder is cheap and pretty much flavorless. I haven't used creatine in a long time, but kre-alkalyn was the best i had used in terms of impact on athletic performance. Everyone's body is different, but most people respond very, very well to kre-alkalyn.

I think it's more like: 3g of Kre-alk is the same as 5g of monohydrat.

You're right, the website says it's something like 1.5g of krealkalyn to 5 g of creatine monohydrate. Thanks for the correction!

Thread resurrection!

Has anyone used podium gold? http://www.csanutrition.com/pdinfo.htm

It looks like it is creatine and beta-alanine combined in a salt. So it would be similar to kre-alkalyn in absorption. Just ordered it today. Not sure it it would have any benefit over using the two separately.

No idea though some of the articles on Tnation showed positive results when using both concurrently.

I've noticed that the type of creatine you supplement has a profound effect on how much water weight you gain. The first time I tried creatine, I bought a generic creatine monohydrate and subsequently gained ~3-4lbs of water weight. I tried again afterwards with ON micronized creatine and retain less than 1lb of extra water.

I'm switching over to Gymnastic Strength Training™ from a pure lifting routine and can only vouch for creatine for strength training. Using creatine, my lifts were up an average of 10lbs per compound exercise (about 30lbs for deadlift) and I would be able to bang out 1-2 more reps per set. It was extremely useful considering my reps per set were in the 3-5 range. I'm unsure of how much use it will be now because the training style is vastly different.

So far I've cycled off creatine for the start of my training; trying to cut down on my weight a bit to make the process easier. I figure as long as I still only retain ~1lb extra water weight with the micronized creatine, there's no harm in taking it.

If I were gonna take creatine while training in the gym and doing events, I would probably save for doing it before S&C or maybe have to do it twice, once before workout and once in the middle. From what I remember, it wouldn't last 3-4 hours really.

I like creatine.. I just keep forgetting to take it. It works very well though, definitely one of the few supplements actually worth the money imo.

Creatine is very cheap, and it's effective, almost in all form of it. I used a lot of monohydrate creatine in years, because before doing gymnast I did some years of weight; also used tricreatine malate, creatine etil estere, creatine etil orotate.

Creatine for me is the best supplements, I don't add weight, only 0.5-1kg when use high quantity, but the gain in strenght and resistance in training is very good, and I mantain the gain also when I don't take it.

It seems Creatine+Beta Alanine is the **** right now. PodiumGold sells a formula based on this that I hear Jon North uses as well as the PodiumGold USAW lifters (aka Abadjiev and Krychev).

Definitely going to look into it when I get some $$.