If you are a serious bodybuilder, you have more than likely heard of the term, creatine loading. If you have heard of the term, but you are not quite certain exactly what it means, this article will give you a little more insight into a practice that a lot of bodybuilders swear by.
Creatine is a substance that occurs naturally in some of the high protein foods that we eat and is also manufactured by our bodies. When our muscles need energy to perform work they get this energy from ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Creatine plays an important role in regenerating a depleted ATP supply in our muscles. Many bodybuilders think that if a little creatine is good then more is certainly better and this leads a lot of people to experiment with taking various dosages of the supplement.
Many athletes and bodybuilders believe that they can optimize their muscle growth and strength gain by cycling their creatine dosages, taking a larger than usual dose for a period of time and then taking the regular, recommended dose for a period of time. The larger doses in the beginning of the cycle would be the creatine loading phase and the smaller doses are a maintenance phase.
Creatine can definitely help you have more effective workouts, gain muscle mass, and even reduce recovery time after a workout but there is some disagreement over whether creatine loading is beneficial or if you're just wasting your money on extra supplements. The recommended dosage of 5 grams is perfect for most people. For hard-core bodybuilders and elite athletes a loading and maintenance cycle may have some benefits. While just about anybody that works out can benefit from creatine supplementation, studies have shown that some people respond to loading and cycling and others do not.
For the people whose bodies do not respond to loading and cycling, extra supplementation is excreted from the body so there is really no point in taking more than the recommended dosage. For people that do respond positively to creatine loading other studies have shown that the effect is greatest during the first 48 hours so the loading phase should be no more than two or three days before you go into the maintenance phase of the cycle. The only way to be certain whether you will respond to creatine loading is to try it for yourself and monitor the results.
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