Beware: there are a great deal of myths on the market associated to creatine monohydrate and fluid retention. You might need heard earlier than that creatine causes bloating and weight acquire.
Or possibly you’ve heard that each one weight acquire from creatine is simply water, not precise muscle. Each of those claims are deceptive overstatements.
It’s true that creatine monohydrate does trigger some fluid retention. Nevertheless, this impact could improve efficiency and doesn’t preclude gaining lean muscle mass. We’ll clear up extra water retention myths beneath – learn on.
Does Creatine Trigger Fluid Retention?
Brief reply: sure, however this impact shouldn’t be dangerous – and may very well be useful.
Let’s dive deeper into the science: creatine monohydrate is osmotic, which implies it attracts and holds small quantities of water. This osmotic response happens within the physique’s tissues the place creatine is saved, which is 95% in skeletal muscle tissue.
How a lot water weight may you expertise with creatine?
A randomized trial checked out complete physique water, intracellular water, and extracellular water in 32 strength-training members.
The research discovered that members taking creatine had gained slightly below 0.9 liters of complete physique water after 28 days of supplementation, considerably extra water than the non-creatine placebo group gained.
These researchers concluded that due to creatine’s osmotic impact, it is sensible that the physique’s water content material ought to enhance as creatine consumption additionally will increase.
Precisely what this water weight enhance appears like will differ individual to individual.
Some individuals do expertise a bloated feeling, however this tends to be noticeable in the course of the loading part – the earliest part of taking creatine through which your doses are larger and extra frequent than regular.
How Fluid Retention Could Enhance Efficiency
Fluid retention or “water weight” usually has a foul connotation.
Nevertheless, having additional fluid in your muscle tissue may very well be ergogenic (aka, improve exercise efficiency). Let’s have a look at two examples of this utility beneath: muscle protein synthesis and muscle hydration.
Muscle Protein Synthesis
A rise in muscle cell quantity may very well be an anabolic proliferative sign – in different phrases, a “message” to the cell to start making extra muscle protein.
Creatine’s means to assist enhance cell quantity by way of fluid retention could also be a technique through which creatine helps enhance energy, endurance, and general efficiency.
Hydration
Based on the Worldwide Society of Sports activities Vitamin (ISSN), creatine supplementation could be “an effective nutritional hyper-hydration strategy for athletes engaged in intense exercise in hot and humid environments” that reduces the dangers of warmth related-illness.
Creatine’s means to assist the physique maintain onto water can truly assist us thermoregulate in excessive temperatures and at excessive ranges of exertion.
Are My Features Simply Water?
Some weight acquire whereas taking creatine does come from fluid retention.
With that stated, the ISSN calls it a “myth” that each one weight acquire throughout creatine supplementation comes from water. Whereas the preliminary weight acquire throughout a week-long loading part is probably going primarily fluid, customers will in all probability additionally acquire lean physique mass in the long run.
A part of the speculation behind that is the ergogenic advantages of creatine allow individuals to coach higher – in different phrases, work more durable and recuperate quicker.
This work then, in flip, builds lean muscle mass. Whereas these outcomes aren’t prompt, they’re research-proven. Handfuls of research present that muscle mass and muscle diameter enhance after utilizing creatine mixed with coaching.
Do Fluid Shifts Trigger Cramps?
Whereas it’s not backed up by science, chances are you’ll anecdotally hear that muscle cramps are a facet impact of taking creatine.
One speculation behind that is that creatine’s means to retain water causes fluid shifts within the physique that, in flip, trigger cramps – however is that this true?
Most likely not. The research talked about earlier that examined intracellular and extracellular water discovered no statistically important shift between water content material inside versus outdoors of cells alongside individuals who took creatine, regardless that complete physique water elevated.
These findings don’t help the “fluid shift theory” behind cramping.
Likewise, a lot of the literature claims that creatine doesn’t trigger cramping. In reality, a couple of research present creatine could scale back the dangers of muscle cramps.
Advantages of Creatine Monohydrate – “creatine water retention”
In the event you’re on the lookout for creatine, you’ll discover it in numerous varieties – like creatine monohydrate, creatine ethyl ester, and creatine hydrochloride, to call only a few.
Creatine monohydrate is probably the most extensively studied and extensively used type of creatine.
Based mostly on probably the most up-to-date scientific proof, specialists proceed to advocate creatine monohydrate due to its confirmed effectiveness and security.
Whereas the opposite types of creatine could present some promising ends in research, they’re nonetheless pretty new to the scene and require extra analysis.
What are these confirmed advantages of creatine monohydrate? Listed here are only a few:
Specialists advocate creatine monohydrate for actions starting from lifting to endurance working to sprinting to martial arts (and many extra!).
Creatine monohydrate helps just about any exercise through which muscle mass, energy, and restoration time matter.
The Backside Line
In the event you take creatine monohydrate, you very doubtless will retain some water. This will have ergogenic benefits, together with signaling muscle protein anabolism as effectively bettering efficiency at excessive temperatures.
Needless to say muscle tissue is about 73% water anyhow – so a rise in physique water is anticipated regardless.
“creatine water retention”