Forum Nation,

I wanted to post my opinion and insight on Creatine. This comes from personal experience and some researching on the Internet. These are soley my opinions and for discussion/information purposes only. Whether you agree with me or not, I wanted to relay my thoughts since Creatine is a well known and regularly used supplement especially for natural bodybuilders :-) ------ (It is kinda long and I apologize)

First the biology:

Creatine is a precursor to a compound called Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). Within every cell and with the highest concentration in muscle cells are Mitochondria. Mitochondria are the power plants of all cells and is what power them and makes them run. Muscles cells have lots of them and the numbers of mitochondria actually increase as muscles grow and become stronger - part of the benefits of weight training and why muscle is called "active" tissue whereby it is always burning calories even at rest. ATP is the fuel that runs your mitochondria. Creatine supplementation increases the available building blocks to make ATP. One must remember that your body already does this and extracts creatine from the foods you eat and turns it into ATP for cell energy.

Within everyone's tendons is a component called the Golgi Tendon Organ (GTO). The GTO is a protection device for your tendons. It is like a sensor in your car's engine. It constantly monitors the tension in a tendon during muscle contraction and signals the brain to cease contraction if it feels the tendon will tear and/or rupture. The only time it is over-riden is during "fight or flight" responses - like when you read about the guy who lifted the car off his wife but tore every tendon in his arms doing it. The GTO constantly "re-calibrates" itself as your muscles and tendons become stronger from weightlifting. The key here is they work in tandem meaning your tendons adjust at the same rate as your muscles.

Now that I have explained ATP and GTO, here is why I am not a fan of Creatine. Your body is an efficient machine that you can train thru adaptation. One way to make the body adapt is thru weight training and proper nutrition. All your systems work as a whole. This is why cardio and proper diet affect all of your body not just your circulatory and muscular systems. Your body already has a pathway to extract creatine and convert it to ATP from the food you eat. The more your train it, the faster and more efficient you make it. You train it with FOOD. Creatine is not a food. It is pure creatine that your body doesn't have to do anything to absorb it. This is why drinking just protein shakes doesn't burn as many calories as eating protein rich foods which need to be digested. Supplementing with Creatine makes these pathways "lazy" and doesn't "teach" them how to extract and process creatine faster and more efficiently. The added energy boost and contraction strenght creatine gives a muscle increases the rate of tendon stress and joint injury. Creatine is like adding a turbo charger to your engine. By forcing more air into the system, and engine can burn more fuel thus increasing horsepower and torque. Over time, your engine will wear out due to the added stress of turbo charging. Your tendons are the same way. I am not implying that if you take Creatine you will rip up your tendons and wreck your joints. It is a cummulative effect that, in my opinion, is sped up by using it. Your tendons get micro tears all the time from training. When these tears occur faster than they are repaired you get tendonitis. Your GTO is designed to prevent or minimize this. The problem is your GTO can't "re-calibrate" as quickly as creatine can increase the strength of muscle contractions. To put it another way, take deadlifts. You increase your deadlift by gradually increasing the weight. You don't hit 405lbs and they say "well now I can do 500lbs". You move to 415lbs or 420lbs. Creatine is like pushing your tendons to 500lbs - your muscles are ready but your tendons aren't. Over time this leads to tendonitis and depending on where your "weak" spots are those will be the joints most affected (for me it was my elbows and knees).

My long winded message is this - if you want to use Creatine, use it wisely and "cycle" it. Don't use it all the time but realize when you do the things I have highlighted above are happening inside you. For those who don't use or have no interest to use (like me), no need to start.

John