Creatine Pros and Cons
What is Creatine?
Creatine is a natural compound produced by the body that helps release energy in muscles. Scientific research indicates that creatine can boost short-term bursts of power.
What Does Creatine Do?
Most of the research points to improvements like one more repetition on a maximum-weight bench press, or increased speed during cycling sprints of very short duration. Some studies have shown an increase in lean muscle mass with creatine. The hype is that creatine can produce steroid-like effects without the side effects.
Creatine helps muscles make and circulate more adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fuel the body uses for quick, explosive activity of short duration like weightlifting or sprinting. Creatine also reduces energy waste products. As a result, it's purported to enhance performance and decrease fatigue.
Some coaches and players advocate the use of creatine to enhance athletic performance, "I can get away with practicing a little less because I'm taking creatine", says one athlete.
Do You Really Need Creatine?
A normal liver makes about 2 grams of creatine each day. Creatine also is readily available from meat in your diet. Creatine levels are relatively easily maintained, and muscles can store creatine. The kidneys remove excess levels of the substance, which casts some doubt on whether creatine supplements are of any value to someone who already has a high muscle creatine content.
Others feel that your muscles can hold more than 2 grams of creatine and that cooking destroys a lot of the creatine in you diet, so therefore creatine supplementation does indeed help.
Does Creatine Have Side Effects?
When creatine was first introduced to the supplement market, there was a lot of media hype about the possibility of short and long term side effects.
After over 20 years of bodybuilders and athletes using creatine, there have been no major bad side effects from creatine.
But, there are some minor side effects you should be aware of such as stomach upset, diarrhea, bloating, water retention and muscle cramps.
What's the Best Form of Creatine?
Kre Alkalyn is a buffered form of creatine that has all the benefits of creatine but with much less chance of the above side effects, for more information checkout Kre Alkalyn Creatine
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