stimulate muscle growth. In other words, those "in the know" say the typical increase in muscle size seen with taking creatine isn't due to any "anabolic effect" of the stuff but rather to the water absorption that accompanies creatine retention in muscles. That and increased training intensity, which, in time, leads to greater muscle growth.
Sounds good. But so did, for nearly 1,500 years the "Ptolemaic" model of the universe, which had the earth at the center, with the sun, moon, planets and stars revolving around it.
The fact is, as anyone who's ever supplemented with creatine will testify, there has got to be something else going on here. Creatine's effects are just too quick and radical to be fully explained by an increased training effect or water absorption. That's what a team of researchers from Chukyo University in Toyota, Japan, thought as they recently set out to question the answers about creatine's mechanisms of muscle growth.
Interestingly, in contrast to what the creatine talking heads would have us believe, Dr. J.M. Schedel and colleagues discovered that creatine may in fact have direct anabolic properties due to its effect on enhancing human growth hormone secretion. The researchers found that subjects who loaded with 20 grams of creatine showed a "significant stimulation" of growth hormone between two and six hours after ingestion versus those who were given a placebo.
The researchers concluded that, in resting conditions and at loading dosages, creatine supplementation mimics the response of intense exercise, which stimulates growth hormone secretion. This, they say, could partly explain the dramatic muscle size and strength increases observed after creatine loading and should, along with other factors, be considered when investigating just how creatine works it's magic."
Other References you should check out:
Creatine : by Ray Sahelian, M.D., author of Creatine: Nature's Muscle Builder
The honest facts about Creatine
In Summary:
There are a lot of varying opinions not only about Creatine Supplementation, but also about ANY Nutritional or even Vitamin Supplements out there. Nobody can dictate their philosophies on you. You must decide what's best for you and establish your own guidelines. Do I think all carrots are the same? No. Do I think they all have the same amount of nutrients? No. If I concentrated or juiced a bunch of organic carrots and a bunch that's had every type of pesticide, herbicide and I-don't-know-icide (to get more of the nutrients), would I also get more of a concentration of the chemicals used in growing the inorganic bunch? Probably. Would I only eat concentrated forms of carrots for the rest of my life? No.
The same logic applies to oranges, vitamins and nutritional supplements. It's your system. You decide. But, be smart. Periodization seems to keep our bodies primed. You can't look for the solution within a pill or a bottle, but neither should you accept outdated research or advertising hype. My advice to you is to gain as much knowledge about a supplement as you can, give yourself that initial inner-strength time where it's only you and your workout routine, and if you decide on any vitamin or nutritional supplementation, use it for fine tuning and final refining times, but be wise enough to keep going back to square one and avoid the biases out there! |
