Creatine: monohydrate vs kre-alkalyn

Would love to see a discussion on the subject of monohydrate vs kre-alkalyn as I'm running out of creatine soon. Here is what I can see from the general product descriptions:

monohydrate:

- possibly conversion to creatinine which is ineffective and dangerous

- water retention (this can be good or bad, but probably bad for relative strength)

- takes time to store in body

- it works, in my experience.

- 10g/day dose

kre-alkalyn:

- no creatinine conversion

- no buildup time required

- 1.5g/day dose

- no water retention (again, can be good or bad)

- I have no experience with this, and the studies I found were all from the same place so most likely there is a bias.

Please post your experiences with this.

Good question Razz! I was also going to ask the same thing at some point. For now i just bought some 'mono' since i could find it in town, but is there really a difference?

Does Kre-Alkalyn go under a different name? Nothing comes up in pubmed.

not sure.

BUMP, any experience and knowledge from some of the smart guys is really appreciated

University of Tulsa did an independant study/review... they found no significant advantage to any form of creatine (don't remember all the variations tested) and monhydrate to be the most cost effective form...

Razz said:

not sure.

BUMP, any experience and knowledge from some of the smart guys is really appreciated

What would be the relevance of experience with supplements when there is no peer-reviewed research? The placebo effect is too powerful to listen to anecdote, not to mention people rarely control confounding variables in real life.

Only pubmed can solve this, IMO. No pubmed, no need to continue discussion.

Hmm yeah I guess that's true Triangle.. Monohydrate it is, until someone convinces me otherwise lol.

Maybe if someone had a bunch of clients that they tested it on, but they would have to really control the variables and have the ability to blood tests and things.

I would be interested in hearing the thoughts of such a trainer in the absence of peer reviewed research, but most of the time people are just say, "Bro, I used this stuff and it totally worked for me (or my clients)." Yeah, ok.

Personally, I would never spend money on a supplement that has never been tested.

Creatine is perhaps the most studied ergonomic supplement!

Triangle,

You seem to place no value in anecdotal evidence?

ed x said:

Creatine is perhaps the most studied ergonomic supplement!

Triangle,

You seem to place no value in anecdotal evidence?

No, I do, in the right context. It's just that supplementation is the area where anecdotal evidence is the weakest.

Strength & conditioning is an art-science. The science is incomplete, so you have to rely on other sources of evidence to fill in the gaps. I know this.

Some don't absorb monoh ydrate well, so the must find creatine in other form to get absorb it.

Bottom line: when your cells are full it doesn't matter with wich creatine, results are the same.

Time to get more monohydrate