Creatine Cycling

[Falcon]

Hi

I'm using creatine monohydrate for about 2 and a half months now and I'm curious if I should stop taking it now for, let's say a month, and then start again for 2 or 3 months.

Is creatine cycling better than taking it everyday because your body gets used to the creatine, so the power-up effect dissapears after few months? I've thought of not taking creatine for a month to get that "power-up" effect again.

Any thoughts?

[barrett]

this post from charles poliquin's blog touches on some of the benefits of creatine loading/cycling. hope it helps.

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/Blog/tab ... aster.aspx

[Martin de Jesus Ponce Robaldino]

Well, some months ago, i get into creatine cycling, in all the lectures i did, i found that the most recomendable thing about cycling, is that you should program them for max one and half months (6 weeks), due to liquid retention and the potencial damage to your kidneys...

I'm not an experte, but that was what i read...

sorry for the english and greetings from Mexico!

[Cole Dano]

Purely my experience, but it does match what the Poliquin article says. I took it for about 8 months straight. I did manage to gain about 10 kilos, but the last few months felt 'heavy'. About 3 weeks after going off, i felt lighter and noticed a sudden spike in strength. I think mostly due to being lighter, but with more muscle mass.

I did meet my goals, to gain the 10kg. Next year will do another cycle, and try to gain another 10 kg. For now i'd like to consolidate my strength gains.

[Joshua Naterman]

It depends on what kind of creatine you're taking and how much, but in general cycling it 2-3 months on 1 month off seems to be the best way to do things if you're going to cycle, but there really isn't a need to cycle completely on and off. There have been 5 year studies on creatine that confirm there is no risk to long term use. Well, at least for 5 years lol! That's a long time though.

Monohydrate is most likely to cause problems if you take too much for too long because most of it gets converted to creatinine. There are other delivery methods, but you should do what you can afford. Monohydrate isn't going to hurt you unless you already have kidney damage and/or you are just really stupid and take 20g a day forever.

[Rower]

Purely my experience, but it does match what the Poliquin article says. I took it for about 8 months straight. I did manage to gain about 10 kilos, but the last few months felt 'heavy'. About 3 weeks after going off, i felt lighter and noticed a sudden spike in strength. I think mostly due to being lighter, but with more muscle mass.

I did meet my goals, to gain the 10kg. Next year will do another cycle, and try to gain another 10 kg. For now i'd like to consolidate my strength gains.

Were you doing the WODs, or did you train with weights during that time?

By the way, I once read a study indicating that creatine supplementation may result in hair loss. Are there any new studies on this subject?

[Cole Dano]

I was doing the WODS, weights for heavy leg days legs.

I read the same, i kind of seemed more like a hack job on Creatine though. I'm not the person to ask, hair was already going

[Rower]

Thanks for the response. It's good to know that gaining that much mass by doing the WODs is possible, theoretical at least

I planned to go on creatine the next month, but the whole hair loss thing is worrying me quite a bit...

[Joshua Naterman]

I have never heard of creatine being involved with hair loss, I think that falls into more of an urban myth status. Anything's possible I suppose, but that's a new one on me.

[Cole Dano]

When i was doing online research on Creatine the hair loss thing came up all the time, however the sites had that feeling of being sponsored by other supplement makers.

Godd ole innerweb.

[AlexX]

There was one study done on the subject of creatine and hairloss and they found a slight correlation with no conclusive evidence. The news took the slight statistical correlation and made it a huge thing. So for now I am with slizzardman more of an urban myth than a real problem.

[Rower]

I looked it up again, and it seems as if you guys are right.

Is there any new research on how to take creatine? I did a quick search and it seems, as if Poliquin still advocates a loading phase followed by a maintaining phase.

So my state of knowledge is: loading phase of two weeks with two daily doses (whats the plural of dose!? ) of 5 - 10 gram taken with dextrose plus an additional dose of 5 gram taken with dextrose post workout.

Then a maintaining phase with one daily dose of 5 -10 gram plus an additional dose of 5 gram taken with dextrose post workout.

How does that look?

[Falcon]

You don't have to load, it's kinda... useless. But that's just my opinion. Just take 5g everyday.

[Joshua Naterman]

Loading isn't necessary, but it helps get you up to speed 1-2 weeks faster than just doing whatever the standard dose is for your chosen creatine variety! It's all about what you want to do. If you want to keep it simple, just use the same dose every day and don't worry about loading. In the long run it doesn't make much of a difference, and you need to use any supplement for at least 6-8 weeks to get a noticeable permanent effect. It has to be there long enough for a full muscle regeneration cycle which is around 6 weeks.

[Rower]

Alright, thanks guys. Should I take the creatine with dextrose oder with glutamine?

[Joshua Naterman]

NEVER with glutamine, you need at least an hour between the two! Glucose or other sugar is ok, and important with monohydrate but not really with ethyl ester or krealkalyn.

Reason for dose separation is that they use the same transport molecule. It's like two guys trying to ride the same unicycle, it's not going to work.

Someone gets left behind. If you're taking a normal dose they will not both be fully absorbed at the same time so separation is helful.

[Quick Start Test Smith]

Do you mean no creatine and dextrose together or no creatine and glutamine together?

[Rower]

Thanks! Creatine taken with glutamine was a huge thing amongst german bodybuilders/weightlifters two or three years ago when I used to work out in a open gym. Supposedly there were studies which suggested that this combination works way better than creatine with glucose. Glad I asked

[Blairbob]

http://www.bodybuildingdungeon.com/forums/supplements/19529-glutamine-plus-creatine.html

Myth: "Don't take your creatine with protein because protein contains glutamine and glutamine competes with creatine for the same transporter!"

The Real Deal: There's not an ounce of truth to this. Creatine and glutamine have completely different receptors. Creatine transport into skeletal muscle is regulated by the Creatine Transporter7 while glutamine transport into skeletal muscle is regulated by a system known as "System Nm." 8 The only thing these transporters have in common is that they are both sodium-dependent transporters, meaning that they use differences in sodium concentrations across the cell membrane to drive creatine into cells. Apparently somewhere along the line, somebody believed that since glutamine and creatine transporters both shared that characteristic, they must be the same transporter and the myth spread from there. Let the confusion end here: they do not share the same transporter, and taking protein/glutamine with creatine won't decrease creatine uptake into muscle.

Candow et al studied glutamine supplementation in resistance training young adults. 31 subjects were divided in 2 groups. One group recieved glutamine ( 0.9 g / kg lean tissue mass) and the other group recieved maltodextrin ( 0.9 g / kg lean tissue mass). Before and after, 1 repetition maximum (1 RM) of squats, bench press and peak knee extension were measured. Measurements of lean tissue mass and urinary measurements of muscle degradation were also made. The strength training program consisted for 6 weeks. The study showed that strength training increased (of course) strength and lean tissue mass. The study could not show any differences between the groups. That means that glutamine supplementation failed to show any additional effects on strength and lean body mass in this study.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1221192/pdf/10903126.pdf

http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/glutamine.pdf

http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/creatineresearch1final.pdf

http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/creatineresearch2.pdf

http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/DietarySupplements.pdf

Furthermore, claims that Glutamine reduces protein breakdown and improves immune function are quite embellished. It is required in very high (>20 g/day) and sustained doses to effectively influence net protein balance or physiological measures of immune function.39,40,41

Glutamine has, however, proven to be as effective POST workout at restoring muscle glycogen levels as a glucose containing beverage. This could be a great asset to an individual on a carbohydrate restricted diet, especially since Glutamine taken alone was shown to NOT increase insulin.42 The following recommendations are therefore based on Glutamine’s ability to restore glycogen in the absence of carbohydrate.

Dosing/Timing

Glycogen Resynthesis: 8g consumed immediately post exercise.4

[Cole Dano]

Very interesting BlairBob

[Rower]

Indeed, but it does not support the notion, that creatine taken with glutamine works better than creatine taken with dextrose or any other kind of sugar, doesn't it?

[Joshua Naterman]

Nice, that's news to me. I had always read that they shared teh same transport molecule. If they do not, well, obviously you can take them together.

Pat: I was talking about glutamine and creatine.

[Blairbob]

Quite honestly I wasn't trying to call Sliz out. A bit of google searching since I merely wanted to look into some glutamine research as it's largely considered a supplement that is down and out but good for leaky gut according to Poliquin. So I learned a lot in the process and that was barely even skimming those pdf's.

[Joshua Naterman]

Whatever man! I think that's great! I'm not some punk who needs to be right all the time, who the heck do you think I am?!

I'm Naterman, the crazy guy who tries to lift us all to greater heights! (Gurren Lagann tribute, and also 244% true)

Glutamine PWO for glycogen replenishment seems like a waste of money to me unless there are some very specific restrictive conditions going on!

[Rower]

NEVER with glutamine, you need at least an hour between the two! Glucose or other sugar is ok, and important with monohydrate but not really with ethyl ester or krealkalyn.

In my research for a optimal template for creatine consumption I came across the following:

Early Morning on an empty stomach: 5 gr of Creatine taken with 30 gr of Whey Protein diluted in water

30-45 Minutes later (still empty stomach): 50 gr of Dextrose

wait a couple of minutes, then eat breakfast

That seems very inconvenient. Also, 50 gr of Dextrose is a lot of carbs. I like to stay at around 100 gr of carbs, at least on non-training days, so the morning dosage would be half of my daily carb intake...

What do you thing about this protocol? I am also happy to be pointed in other directions...