5 g of creatine enough?

[RJstrong]

Trying to sell a book or something?? Sounds more like a sales pitch. I'm not going to bother saying where I get my info from. I'm sure some people around here know because of other posts I've written, but I'm not going to get into it now. I'll just say that I've spent a whole lot of time in school and I know what I'm talking about.

Why would I be trying to sell a college text book? that is simply work cited info... so anyone can look up my source. I am actually a bar owner down here in Florida... I sell alcohol... not books... hey if you are ever down in central florida come to the lamppost tavern in cape canaveral... now that's my sales pitch!!!

[Aggression]

Well not to stir up another contraversial debate, but the question is...

To cycle creatine or not to cycle creatine, that is the question.

I heard you should go 2 months on, 1 month off.

[Jantzen4k]

Creatine is cheap as hell and works awsome. The only side is that its the gateway drug and you start using everything else after you see the effects of it. At least thats how I got started.

that is best line i ever heard, or could possibly think of Soldier. My next english paper will be on how Creatine is the gateway drug to gear.
thanks soldier

[nsa]

Well not to stir up another contraversial debate, but the question is...

To cycle creatine or not to cycle creatine, that is the question.

I heard you should go 2 months on, 1 month off.

Of course you need to cycle it. If you consistenly use creatine you will need to kleep upping the dose after a while to keep the effectiveness the same. So yes you need to cycle it.

[DBarcelo]

Why would I be trying to sell a college text book? that is simply work cited info... so anyone can look up my source. I am actually a bar owner down here in Florida... I sell alcohol... not books... hey if you are ever down in central florida come to the lamppost tavern in cape canaveral... now that's my sales pitch!!!

I'll be in Florida in two weeks.

[DBarcelo]

To cycle creatine or not to cycle creatine, that is the question.

I heard you should go 2 months on, 1 month off.

You don't have to cycle creatine and there's nothing to gain by doing so. You always have creatine in your body. You're not going to permanently stop the production of natural creatine. Your body doesn't begin to tolerate creatine either. There's no reason to do it. Your body can only hold but so much creatine and the only way you can get your body to hold more creatine is to grow more muscle. If you stay on creatine consistantly you will notice a lull after the initial increase in performance and size from bloating. I know some people hate when I make my silly analogies, but here I go again anyway...... It's kinda like putting oil in your car and just leaving it there until your oil light comes on. After the oil is in the car you don't see any increase in performance, when the oil goes bad, and you change the oil, you notice a boost in performance. Cycling creatine is kinda like leaving oil in your car for year. You stop supplimenting creatine and your body goes back down to it's natural low level of creatine and when you start again, your muscles have all the creatine they need and you see another little jump in performance. In reality, you are exactly at the same spot that you would have been in if you had just kept taking the creatine (maybe even a little further behind).

[DBarcelo]

Of course you need to cycle it. If you consistenly use creatine you will need to kleep upping the dose after a while to keep the effectiveness the same. So yes you need to cycle it.

You should never up the dose on creatine to try to keep making gains. Once your muscles are at capacity, that's it, they can't hold any more. There is no increasing the dose so your muscles can hold more. The only thing your body is going to do is start dumping creatine in parts of the body that shouldn't have it there, like the heart. And you're going to risk cloging your kidneys because your kidneys can't filter creatine out of your body(your kidneys are one of the organs that make creatine).

[co2boi]

Scientific research aside, from my experience creatine powder works. Not serums and not effervesants. A large percentage of them are already creatinine the rest gets converted to creatinine before your body can absorb it.

I like the micronized powders, they absorb well in water so you don't have to keep stirring and sh*t

[DBarcelo]

Why would I be trying to sell a college text book? that is simply work cited info... so anyone can look up my source. I am actually a bar owner down here in Florida... I sell alcohol... not books... hey if you are ever down in central florida come to the lamppost tavern in cape canaveral... now that's my sales pitch!!!

I didn't mean that you were actually trying to sell a book. You have it listed as a reference AS IF you were trying to sell a book.

What you're doing is trying to get into a pissing contest with me. As if my information is wrong because you got your info out of some undergrad basic anatomy book written on a 10th grade reading level.

Go to medical school for 10 years and then quote some books and site some studies that actually mean something. But don't act like you're proving to everyone that you're right about something by citing some undergrad textbook.

Better yet, you provide the page number in that book that says that creatine creates ATP. Since you want to show everyone where your info came from, what page in that book says that creatinine is the waste product of creatine? Heck, I'd even settle for you scanning the pages and posting them on this thread.

Someone being wrong about something and not wanting to believe they're wrong is one thing, but a person being wrong about something and then trying to make everyone think they're right is something alltogether different.

A lot of people come to this site and read these threads for information. Doing things like that just makes people misinformed. I admitted when I was wrong about the body producing creatine. I was tired and it slipped my mind, I didn't keep on about it. You were right, the body does create creatine and when I remembered it I even told you how the body did it and what amino acids it used to do it and in what parts of the body.

Since you can't admit you're wrong, then take it a step further and just scan the page that says creatinine is the waste product of creatine and not the waste product of muscle and scan the page that says that creatine creates ATP and not phosphorus. I'm not talking about the ability of creatine phosphate to give it's phosphorus atom to ADP to create ATP again, but it's ability to simply create ATP as you said it does.......

[DBarcelo]

Scientific research aside, from my experience creatine powder works. Not serums and not effervesants. A large percentage of them are already creatinine the rest gets converted to creatinine before your body can absorb it.

I like the micronized powders, they absorb well in water so you don't have to keep stirring and sh*t

Nobody is going to sell you creatinine powder (nobody with any sense anyway). Creatinine is the waste product of muscle. Creatine can't be broken down into creatinine directly. It has to be converted into creatine phosphate and then used by the muscle and then it's turned into creatinine and then dialized by the kidneys and sent to the urinary bladder. Creatine can't be taken out of the body until it's used.

1) The urinary bladder is the only way for the body to get rid of creatine.

2) The kidneys sort out what to keep in the body and what to get rid of.

3) The kidneys are one of the organs that produce creatine.

4) If the kidneys were able to sift out creatine, which it produces itself, it would just be creating the creatine and then getting rid of it without the body ever being able to use it. How can an organ make something and get rid of it at the same time?

[DBarcelo]

Scientific research aside, from my experience creatine powder works. Not serums and not effervesants. A large percentage of them are already creatinine the rest gets converted to creatinine before your body can absorb it.

I like the micronized powders, they absorb well in water so you don't have to keep stirring and sh*t

Nobody is going to sell you creatinine powder (nobody with any sense anyway). Creatinine is the waste product of muscle. Creatine can't be broken down into creatinine directly. It has to be converted into creatine phosphate and then used by the muscle and then it's turned into creatinine and then dialized by the kidneys and sent to the urinary bladder. Creatine can't be taken out of the body until it's used.

1) The urinary bladder is the only way for the body to get rid of creatine.

2) The kidneys sort out what to keep in the body and what to get rid of.

3) The kidneys are one of the organs that produce creatine.

4) If the kidneys were able to sift out creatine, which it produces itself, it would just be creating the creatine and then getting rid of it without the body ever being able to use it. How can an organ make something and get rid of it at the same time?

[co2boi]

Nobody is going to sell you creatinine powder (nobody with any sense anyway). Creatinine is the waste product of muscle. Creatine can't be broken down into creatinine directly. It has to be converted into creatine phosphate and then used by the muscle and then it's turned into creatinine and then dialized by the kidneys and sent to the urinary bladder. Creatine can't be taken out of the body until it's used.

1) The urinary bladder is the only way for the body to get rid of creatine.

2) The kidneys sort out what to keep in the body and what to get rid of.

3) The kidneys are one of the organs that produce creatine.

4) If the kidneys were able to sift out creatine, which it produces itself, it would just be creating the creatine and then getting rid of it without the body ever being able to use it. How can an organ make something and get rid of it at the same time?

Who said anything about buying creatinine powder? I said the serums and effervesants had a significant percentage of waste material already in them.

[Aggression]

Here is why I think you should cycle creatine:

1) It will give your kidneys a break. If you stay on it all year long, your kidneys are gonna suffer.

2) If you stay on it all year long your body will not produce natural creatine and when you come off your body won't be able to make any new creatine.

3) If you stay on it all year long your body will get used to it and you will have to keep upping the dosage.

[RJstrong]

hey db...

the last thing i would ever want to do is to get into a pissing contest with you bro... now a powerlifting contest on the other hand... that would be more my style!!!

[DBarcelo]

Who said anything about buying creatinine powder? I said the serums and effervesants had a significant percentage of waste material already in them.

You were talking about types of creatine and you wrote, "A large percentage of them are already creatinine" To me. that means that a large percentage of creatine powders are already broken down to creatinine.

The serums and effervesants may have other things in them and may not be as pure as creatine monohydrate, but they wouldn't have creatinine in them. Creatinine can only be produced after a special transporter molecule in the body converts creatine into creatine phosphate (in order for it to be able to be absorbed into the muscle cell). When a muscle is used, it uses adenosin triphosphate as it's primary power supply, it breaks down into adinosin diphosphate and then into individual phosphates or adinosin monophosphate. When creatine phosphate is in the muscle, it's phosphate molecule can attach itself to the adinosin diphosphate chain so that it becomes adinosin triphosphate once again before being changed back to adinosin diphosphate again and then adinosin monophosphate. The monophosphate is useless itself and has to be expelled from the body. The creatine phosphate bond is broken and that is what creatinine is. Creatine in a bottle can't be broken down into creatinine because the animal body has to act on creatine before it becomes creatinine. So, you're not going to find creatinine in any creatine product, unless someone specifically synthesizes an artificial creatinine product (which is not likely to happen).

[DBarcelo]

Here is why I think you should cycle creatine:

1) It will give your kidneys a break. If you stay on it all year long, your kidneys are gonna suffer.

2) If you stay on it all year long your body will not produce natural creatine and when you come off your body won't be able to make any new creatine.

3) If you stay on it all year long your body will get used to it and you will have to keep upping the dosage.

1) it is true that a person that has comprimised kidney function shouldn't suppliment creatine, but a person with normal kidney function has no problem with it. There is no stress with processing creatine as long as your body isn't flooded with it (more creatine that what your body can store in the muscle cells). The problem with people with kidney disfunction is the difficulty with dializing creatinine, not creatine. Creatine doesn't have to pulled out of the body by the kidney, but creatinine does.

2) If you stay on it all year long, as long as you're serum creatine levels aren't too high, you will not stop creatine production. When you maintain SUSTAINED elevated serum creatine levels, then your body stops producing it's own creatine and starts dumping creatine into other parts of the body. As long as you stick to 5 grams per day, you will never experience a shut down in natural creatine production. If you put your body in a state of non-creatine production for too long, death will occur and no, you won't be able to create creatine on your own. But if you don't die, your body won't have a problem with producing creatine again because there are four (kidneys counted as two) organs that combine the necessary amino acids to produce creatine. There is no particular gland that produces creatine, it's an enzyme action, so there is no "forgetting" how to produce creatine and if for some strange reason that one orgen "forgot" how to produce creatine, there are three others to pick up the slack.

3) Creatine is a stored substance, there is no getting used to it. Your body can only store but so much creatine and that's it. Your body stores creatine in skelital muscle cells, your body isn't going to create more muscle cells in order to accomidate the excess creatine in your system. As you grow larger and as you grow more muscle cells, then your body will be able to hold more creatine, but it's really not all that much of a difference. Because there is a finite amount of creatine that can be held, upping the dose won't do anything with one exception. If you are supplimenting say 5 grams of creatine and your body is able to hold an extra 10 grams of creatine and you up the dose from 5 grams to 7 grams, you will notice a slight increase. If you up it from 7 to 9, you will see a slight increase in performance. If you up it from 9 to 10 grams, you will see a slight increase in performance. If you up it from 10 to 11, then you're shutting down your native creatine production (if it's sustained at 11 grams and causes a serum and plasma increase in creatine). At 11 grams, you are at danger. This is why we say that 5 grams is a safe amount to suppliment daily. 5 grams may not be enough for some people to complete fill all muscle cells in their body, but it's close enough, and there's minimal risk for elevated serum or plasma creatine levels, so upping the dose is not safe to do at all.

So, basically, you've been terribly mis-informed about the action of creatine.

[DBarcelo]

hey db...

the last thing i would ever want to do is to get into a pissing contest with you bro... now a powerlifting contest on the other hand... that would be more my style!!!

You have me on the power lifting thing. I've never been a power lifter.

[Aggression]

So lets say I stay on all year around for the rest of my life and use 5 g of creatine a day, will I...

1)Be safe. My kidneys will be fine and my body will still be producing creatine naturally.

2)Be getting benefits benefits by using ONLY 5 g a day?

[Monkeytown]

I hate to beat this creatine thing to death but i think it's important... did you know that ingesting extra creatine decreases the body's own synthesis of creatine, and it is not known whether natural synthesis recovers after long-term creatine supplementation... it simply needs more research to determine its safety and its value!

I read a long time ago that taking Creatine for long peiods of time will degcrease and even cause you body to stop synthisizing creatine naturally. I cycle 6 months on/3 months off to prevent this from happening. I have been taking creatine for 3 years noe and love the results I get.

[DBarcelo]

So lets say I stay on all year around for the rest of my life and use 5 g of creatine a day, will I...

1)Be safe. My kidneys will be fine and my body will still be producing creatine naturally.

2)Be getting benefits benefits by using ONLY 5 g a day?

Yes and yes.

[DBarcelo]

I read a long time ago that taking Creatine for long peiods of time will degcrease and even cause you body to stop synthisizing creatine naturally. I cycle 6 months on/3 months off to prevent this from happening. I have been taking creatine for 3 years noe and love the results I get.

Taking HIGH DOSES of creatine for a long period of time will increase your plasma creatine level. An increase in plasma creatine level is what causes the body to stop producing it's own creatine. If you stick to 5 grams a day, you don't have to worry about that happening.

In reality, your body never really stops synthesizing creatine unless the plasma level is high, but the amount it synthesizes is so low when you suppliment creatine (by eating creatine rich foods or creatine monohydrate for example), that it doesn't even matter, it's really as if your body really isn't even producing creatine anyway.

[liztic]

when you guys say to take 5mg of creatine before a workout, how long before are we talking?

[ckcl]

Creatine works for me, but all the gains go away once I stop taking it