Creatine - More Than Just a Fitness Supplement

Creatine has a reputation for being only for people chasing bigger muscles, but it’s really a cellular-energy nutrient with benefits that reach well beyond the gym. If optimising cognitive health, ageing well, and recovering from busy, active days is on your radar, creatine deserves a place in your routine [1].

 

What is creatine?

Creatine is a small compound your body makes (mainly in the liver and kidneys) from the amino acids arginine, glycine, and methionine. You also get it from food, especially red meat and fish. About 95% resides in skeletal muscle; the rest supports the brain and other high-energy tissues. Its role is simple but vital, ensuring ATP, the cell’s ‘energy currency’, flows when demand spikes [1,2].

 

What is phosphocreatine and what does it do?

Inside cells, creatine teams up with a phosphate group to form phosphocreatine (PCr). PCr is your cell’s backup battery. When ATP runs low, creatine kinase hands over a phosphate from PCr to instantly rebuild ATP so the energy keeps flowing. This PCr system:

• Keeps energy online for short, all-out efforts. Think sprints, heavy lifts, explosive moves [1,2].
• Acts like an energy courier, ferrying quick power from the mitochondria (the cell’s power plants) to where it’s needed most, muscle fibres and nerve synapses [1].
• Supports cell signalling and pulls water into the muscle cell. A well-hydrated muscle cell is primed to grow and respond to training [1,2].

 

How does creatine work?

1) More energy for muscle strength, power, and growth

By keeping ATP available, creatine lets you squeeze out extra reps or hold power a little longer. Over weeks, that extra training volume translates into better strength and muscle gain. Creatine also draws water into the muscle cell, supporting cell-swelling signals that favour protein synthesis and reduce breakdown [1,2].

Bonus tip: Mix creatine into your post-workout shake (protein + a little carb) to help drive it into muscle.

 

 

2) Effects on strength and exercise performance

Creatine is one of the best-researched supplements. It consistently helps with short, hard efforts like sprints and heavy lifts. Over 4 - 12 weeks, people typically notice:

• Increased strength (squat, bench, deadlift)
• Better sprint performance and repeated-sprint ability
• More lean mass when combined with resistance training
• Faster between-set recovery [1,2]

Bonus tip: If you want to feel it faster, load for 5 -7 days at 20 g/day (4 small doses) at the start of a training block, then stick to 3 - 5 g/day [1,2].

 

3) Effects on the brain, energy, sleep recovery, and cognition

Your brain burns energy even faster than muscle. Creatine supports neuronal ATP and phosphocreatine reserves, which helps when the brain is under load. Studies show:

• Working memory and processing speed improve most when brain energy is taxed, e.g., sleep restriction, high cognitive load, vegetarian/vegan diets (lower baseline creatine), and ageing [3-6,10].
• Mood and fatigue: emerging trials indicate creatine can ease mental fatigue and support low mood by topping up the brain’s quick-access energy and stabilising neural signalling [4-9].
• Sleep & recovery: after a poor night’s sleep, creatine can help keep you sharp, boosting focus and next-day performance by fuelling the brain’s rapid-use energy stores [5,6].

Bonus tip: When brain demand is high or sleep is short, especially if you’re vegetarian, vegan, or older, use 10 - 20 g/day split into 2 - 4 doses for 3 - 5 days (or 5 -10 g on the day), then return to 3 - 5 g/day [3,5,6,10].

 

 

4) Blood sugar

Creatine helps your muscles handle glucose better, especially alongside exercise. It makes it easier for muscles to pull glucose from your blood and refill their glycogen ‘fuel tank’ after a workout; in training programmes this can translate to smoother post-exercise glycaemia [11,12,13,14,15].

Bonus tip: Add a 10 - 15-minute walk after meals. This pairs well with creatine to keep post-meal blood sugars steadier.

 

Types of creatine. Which is best?

Creatine comes in several forms, including monohydrate, hydrochloride (HCl), nitrate, magnesium chelates, buffered, and ethyl ester. Of these, creatine monohydrate is the best pick: it’s the most studied, stable, affordable, and reliably raises muscle creatine. Head-to-head trials haven’t shown other versions to deliver better strength, muscle, or performance outcomes [1,2].

 

How to use creatine

Dosing options

• Standard: 3 - 5 g per day, taken any time. Within 3 - 4 weeks, muscles reach near-max saturation [1,2].
• Loading (optional): 20 g per day, split into 4 doses for 5 - 7 days, then 3 - 5 g per day to maintain. This provides faster saturation but with the same end point [1,2].

Timing

• Consistency beats timing. Take it whenever you’ll remember, morning coffee, post-training shake, or with a meal [1].
• A little carbohydrate and protein can help uptake, but it isn’t essential [1].
• For cognition, 3 - 5 g daily is simple and evidence-aligned. Vegetarians, vegans, and older adults often respond more because they start lower [3,10].

 

Safety and side effects

Creatine is one of the most researched nutrition supplements. At recommended doses, it is safe for healthy adults, with excellent long-term data [1,16,17].

What you might notice:

• Mild gut upset if you load aggressively or take large doses at once. You can fix this by splitting doses and taking creatine with food [1].
• Muscle cramps and dehydration are often blamed on creatine, but studies don’t support this when you hydrate normally [18,19].
• Vegetarians, vegans and older adults often notice a bigger effect (lower baseline creatine), while heavy meat-eaters may see smaller changes. Give it 3 - 4 weeks to assess [3,10].
  

 

Bringing it all together

Creatine isn’t just a ‘gym supplement’, it’s foundational energy support for muscles and the brain. It helps you train harder, recover better, and think more clearly when life gets demanding, and it may support glucose metabolism during exercise [1,2,11–15].

The simplest, most evidence-based plan is 3 -5 g creatine monohydrate daily, taken consistently and paired with good training, sleep, protein, and hydration [1,2].

 

References

1. Kreider RB, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017.
2. Cooper R, et al. Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2012.
3. Rae C, et al. Oral creatine monohydrate supplementation improves brain performance: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial. Proc R Soc B. 2003.
4. Watanabe A, Kato N, Kato T. Effects of creatine on mental fatigue and cerebral haemoglobin oxygenation. Neurosci Res. 2002.
5. McMorris T, et al. Effect of creatine supplementation and sleep deprivation on cognitive and psychomotor performance and mood. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2006.
6. McMorris T, et al. Creatine supplementation and performance during 36-h sleep deprivation. Physiol Behav. 2007.
7. Lyoo IK, et al. Creatine monohydrate augmentation of SSRI treatment in major depressive disorder: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Am J Psychiatry. 2012.
8. Kondo DG, et al. Creatine augmentation and brain metabolic/connectivity measures in depression. Biol Psychiatry. 2016.
9. UK Nutrition & Health Claims Committee. Scientific opinion on creatine and brain/mental performance. 2024.
10. Avgerinos KI, et al. Effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function of healthy individuals: systematic review of RCTs. Exp Gerontol. 2018.
11. Gualano B, et al. Creatine in type 2 diabetes: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011.
12. Op’t Eijnde B, et al. Effect of oral creatine supplementation on human muscle GLUT-4 protein content. Diabetes. 2001.
13. Derave W, et al. Creatine + protein with resistance training increases muscle GLUT-4 and improves glucose tolerance. J Appl Physiol. 2003.
14. Gualano B, et al. Creatine supplementation improves glucose tolerance with aerobic training. Amino Acids. 2008.
15. Gualano B, et al. Potential of creatine in glucose management and diabetes. Nutrients. 2021.
16. Poortmans JR, Francaux M. Long-term oral creatine supplementation does not impair renal function in healthy athletes. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1999.
17. Kreider RB, et al. Long-term creatine use and clinical markers of health in athletes (21-month open-label). Mol Cell Biochem. 2003.
18. Greenwood M, et al. Creatine use during college football training and the incidence of cramping/injury. J Athl Train. 2003.

19. Greenwood M, et al. Creatine supplementation does not increase cramps or injuries in football players. Mol Cell Biochem. 2003.