20% off £40 or 15% off £30
Ask an expert: How to use creatine for workouts and recovery
Written byRebecca Denne
Reviewed byEmily Foster
Could creatine up your performance and improve your recovery time? We asked a sports nutritionist to tell us about creatine and its benefits
Summary
1What is creatine?
Creatine is a compound that's found naturally within the body’s muscle cells. It helps to provide energy during intense exercise.
2How can creatine help exercise and recovery?
One of the great things about creatine is that it may help to reduce muscle damage following intense exercise.
3How quickly does creatine start to work?
Creatine can take around two to four weeks to start building up in the body but this depends on how much you take.
If you’re into any kind of strength training, cycling or running, chances are you’ve already thought about adding creatine to your supplement cabinet. With a growing body of evidence to suggest the benefits of a daily creatine dosage, it’s no surprise that H&B’s sports nutritionist Emily Foster already believes it can boost sport performance.1
Want to know how creatine could improve your performance? Emily has plenty to tell us about what creatine is, how we can benefit from it and just how much we should be taking to smash those PBs.
What is creatine?
“Creatine is a compound – a mix of elements – that's found naturally within the body’s muscle cells,” begins Emily. “It helps to provide energy during intense exercise, in particular heavy lifting. It's made up of three amino acids – arginine, glycine and methionine – with around half of our body’s creatine being made in the liver and kidney and the rest we get from what we eat,” says Emily.
Sources of creatine include meat and fish but it can also be found in supplement form. There are lots of different creatine types, with one of the most commonly supplemented being creatine monohydrate.
What does creatine do?
According to Emily, “Creatine combines with phosphate (an electrolyte in the body) to form what’s called phosphocreatine. This is a really high-energy compound that’s used to fuel intense high-energy moves, such as sprinting or lifting weights.” Since 95% of our body’s creatine is in the muscles, that’s pretty significant.1 So, if you’re heading for a Hyrox or Iron Man, this could be good news.
How can creatine help exercise and recovery?
“One of the great things about creatine is that it may help to reduce muscle damage following intense exercise.” In essence, it has potential to help reduce muscle-protein breakdown and accelerate recovery.2 “Some research suggests that creatine has an anti-inflammatory effect as well, which means it can reduce inflammation related to exercise,” says Emily.3 “This can even have a knock-on effect for some people – by reducing inflammation in the body, this can help to reduce joint pain and speed up recovery, too.”
However, while creatine has demonstrated potential benefits in reducing muscle damage and supporting recovery, the effects can vary per person and research is still ongoing.
Could creatine help with building muscle during workouts?
It can... There are a few ways that creatine might help with building muscle:
- it may help to boost physical performance4 with a daily intake of 3g a day: “Creatine may increase your performance when, for example, you’re lifting really heavy weights. This means that because you’re lifting to maximum effort, you’re more likely to gain muscle mass,” explains Emily
- creatine may help to prevent workout fatigue:1 “It essentially helps the body cope with how much lactic acid is produced.5 It’s this lactic acid that causes pain in the body and ultimately causes us to stop lifting or running as our muscles ache as a result,” she says. “Creatine manages this and means we can work harder and longer, increasing strength and muscle size.”
- creatine may preserve muscles:6 “Creatine actually decreases muscle-protein breakdown post-workout, so it helps to retain the muscle that you’ve worked hard to build.”
In these ways, you could be working out more effectively or intensely and hopefully keep hold of any gains afterwards.
When should I take creatine for my workouts?
Before taking creatine for the first time, you should speak to your GP or healthcare provider especially if you have underlying health conditions. But presuming you're good to go, take your creatine with carbohydrates – whether that's before or after a workout, it won't make any difference.
“Taking creatine alongside your carbohydrates triggers the release of insulin and means that your body is going to uptake more creatine within the muscles, producing more energy,” says Emily. So, you could have it with a snack or with your pre-workout, or even the night before with a source of carbs at dinner. Check out our guides to football nutrition and cycling nutrition if you’re interested in specific sports.
How quickly does creatine start to work?
“Creatine can take around two to four weeks to start building up in the body.7 Our body already has its own source of creatine but if you start taking a supplement the effect can take a few weeks depending on how much you take,” Emily shares. More on this later.
Is creatine good for women who lift weights?
There's a misconception that if women lift weights they’ll get bulky but – if that’s not what you’re after – it doesn’t have to be the case. “A lot more women are seeing the benefits of strength and resistance training such as improving bone density and changing body composition," says Emily.8,9
"With that comes the interest in supplements such as protein powders and whether creatine has specific benefits for women to support muscle growth and recovery. It's much harder for women to put on muscle mass than it is for men, and because that's becoming more normalised, sports supplements such as creatine are becoming more popular.”
Creatine and workouts FAQs
For most healthy adults, creatine is considered safe to use long term when taken at the usual dose (around 3–5g a day). It’s not a stimulant, so it works differently to typical pre-workouts. If you have any existing health conditions, especially related to your kidneys, it’s worth checking with a doctor first.
There’s no strong evidence to suggest you need to cycle creatine or take regular breaks from it.10 Creatine builds up in your muscles over time, so taking it consistently is what really matters. Some people choose to cycle it but that’s more about personal preference than anything backed by strong evidence.
Current evidence suggests you don’t build a tolerance to creatine in the same way you might with stimulants like caffeine.11 Its benefits generally remain steady with ongoing use, provided your intake stays consistent.
The final say
Want to power up for those big pushes? There are plenty of reasons to get curious about creatine. “Creatine is one of the sports supplements that is most scientifically backed by research – it's got a lot of strong evidence to say that it works,” says Emily.
“Creatine, protein powder and caffeine,” Emily concludes. “Those three supplements could lead to improvements in performance by potentially increasing muscle size and increasing muscle strength.”12 Want to try creatine in your own workout routine? Take a look at our top creatine supplements to try now.
Disclaimer – This article provides informational advice and is not a substitute for medical care. Working with experts for accuracy, we take great care to ensure the information is up-to-date and relevant. However, you should always consult your GP or healthcare professional before using supplements or alternative products, particularly if you have medical conditions or are under supervision.
1. Cooper R, Naclerio F, Allgrove J, Jimenez A. Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition [Internet]. 2012 Jul 20;9(1):1–11. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3407788/
2. Kim J, Lee J, Kim S, Yoon D, Kim J, Sung DJ. Role of creatine supplementation in exercise-induced muscle damage: A mini review. Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation [Internet]. 2015 Oct 28;11(5):244–50. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625651/
3. Cordingley DM, Cornish SM, Candow DG. Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Catabolic Effects of Creatine Supplementation: A Brief Review. Nutrients. 2022 Jan 27;14(3):544.
4. Wax B, Kerksick CM, Jagim AR, Mayo JJ, Lyons BC, Kreider RB. Creatine for Exercise and Sports Performance, with Recovery Considerations for Healthy Populations. Nutrients [Internet]. 2021 Jun 2;13(6):1915. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8228369/
5. Lee S, Hong G, Park W, Lee J, Kim N, Park H, et al. The effect of short-term creatine intake on blood lactic acid and muscle fatigue measured by accelerometer-based tremor response to acute resistance exercise. Physical Activity and Nutrition [Internet]. 2020 Mar 31 [cited 2022 Aug 9];24(1):29–36. Available from: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32408412/
6. Parise G, Mihic S, MacLennan D, Yarasheski KE, Tarnopolsky MA. Effects of acute creatine monohydrate supplementation on leucine kinetics and mixed-muscle protein synthesis. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2001 Sep 1;91(3):1041–7.
7. Hall M, Trojian TH. Creatine Supplementation. Current Sports Medicine Reports [Internet]. 2013;12(4):240–4. Available from: https://journals.lww.com/acsm-csmr/Fulltext/2013/07000/Creatine_Supplementation.10.aspx
8. Exercise for bone health [Internet]. theros.org.uk. Available from: https://theros.org.uk/information-and-support/bone-health/exercise-for-bones/
9. Bellicha A, Baak MA, Battista F, Beaulieu K, Blundell JE, Busetto L, et al. Effect of exercise training on weight loss, body composition changes, and weight maintenance in adults with overweight or obesity: An overview of 12 systematic reviews and 149 studies. Obesity Reviews [Internet]. 2021 May 6;22(S4). Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8365736/
10. Antonio J, Candow DG, Forbes SC, Gualano B, Jagim AR, Kreider RB, et al. Common questions and misconceptions about creatine supplementation: What does the scientific evidence really show? Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition [Internet]. 2021 Feb 8;18(1). Available from: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7871530/
11. Burke R, Piñero A, Coleman M, Mohan A, Sapuppo M, Augustin F, et al. The Effects of Creatine Supplementation Combined with Resistance Training on Regional Measures of Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Nutrients [Internet]. 2023 Jan 1;15(9):2116. Available from: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/15/9/2116
12. Wu SH, Chen KL, Hsu C, Chen HC, Chen JY, Yu SY, et al. Creatine supplementation for muscle growth: A scoping review of randomized clinical trials from 2012 to 2021. Nutrients [Internet]. 2022 Jan 1;14(6):1255. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8949037/
