Creatine Monohydrate may be the single most studied product in the history of dietary supplements. With over 70% of the scientific research showing strong performance benefits, Creatine appears to be one of the few supplement must-haves especially for strength/power/bodybuilding athletes, as well as having some limited benefits for endurance athletes.
Creatine supplementation can potentially impact exercise performance through several different mechanisms. The most direct is by increasing muscular stores of Creatine Phosphate which is used to resynthesize ATP during high-intensity activities lasting between ten seconds and two minutes, with little to no benefit for activities lasting longer than that.
Creatine may also help to buffer changes in muscle acidosis, as well as sparing glycogen utilization during short-duration activities.
Creatine also appears to improve recovery between repeated bouts of a high-intensity activity such as repeated sprints or intervals.
In addition, Creatine has been suggested to increase the gains in muscle mass with training.
While the benefit of Creatine for strength/power athletes/bodybuilders is well established, the role of endurance athletes is more debatable.
Based on its mechanism of action, there is little reason to expect Creatine supplements to greatly benefit endurance events or any event lasting longer than about three minutes.
For the most part, research has supported this with Creatine having no real impact on endurance performance.
However, studies examining intermittent endurance performance (interval training) have found some benefit, which is in keeping with the mechanism of Creatine.
Also, post-exercise Creatine supplementation by endurance athletes has been found to improve recovery by decreasing markers of muscle inflammation and damage.
However, any improvements in anaerobic performance have to be balanced against the weight gain that can occur; the increase in body weight could easily overcome any improvements for endurance athletes.
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