For decades, creatine had a reputation.
Walk into a supplement store and you would usually find it sitting next to giant tubs of protein powder marketed toward bodybuilders trying to get bigger and stronger.
Because of that, many people assumed creatine was only for serious athletes, powerlifters, football players, or bodybuilders.
We now know that is an outdated way of looking at it.
Creatine is one of the most researched nutritional supplements available, and the potential benefits go far beyond building bigger muscles.
Research has examined creatine for strength, exercise performance, muscle preservation, healthy aging, cognitive function, mental fatigue, and even how the brain responds to sleep deprivation.
And some of the most interesting research today involves people who aren’t bodybuilders at all.
Creatine is not a steroid.
It is a compound your body naturally produces from amino acids. You also get smaller amounts through foods such as beef, pork, salmon, and other animal products.
Your liver and kidneys produce roughly one gram of creatine per day, and most of the creatine stored in your body is found in skeletal muscle.
Creatine helps your body regenerate ATP, which is one of the body’s primary forms of usable energy.
Think about ATP as your body’s energy currency.
When you perform a heavy set of squats, sprint, climb stairs, pick something heavy off the ground, or perform another short burst of intense activity, your creatine phosphocreatine system helps provide energy quickly.
This is one reason creatine has been studied for decades in athletes.
But muscles aren’t the only tissues in the body that require enormous amounts of energy.
Your brain does too.
That is where the conversation around creatine gets much more interesting.
This remains the area where we have some of the strongest evidence.
Creatine supplementation can improve strength, power, repeated high intensity exercise performance, and the adaptations that occur when creatine is combined with resistance training.
The National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements describes creatine as one of the most extensively studied performance supplements and notes that it can improve strength, power, and the ability to perform repeated bouts of high intensity activity. (ODS)
That matters whether you are 25 or 65.
The goal isn’t simply to lift more weight.
Muscle is an important part of long term health.
As we get older, maintaining muscle becomes increasingly important for strength, metabolism, balance, mobility, physical independence, and our ability to continue doing the things we enjoy.
Research in older adults has found that combining creatine with resistance training can produce greater improvements in lean tissue and strength than resistance training alone. (PubMed)
Creatine does not replace resistance training.
Think about it this way:
Strength training provides the stimulus.
Protein provides the building material.
Creatine helps support the energy system that allows you to train, recover, and adapt.
That is a much different picture than simply taking a supplement to make your muscles look bigger.
One of the biggest conversations we need to have in health and fitness isn’t how much weight people are losing.
It is how much muscle they are keeping.
Age related muscle loss can eventually affect strength, balance, physical function, and independence.
This is one reason I believe resistance training should become more important as we age, not less important.
Creatine may help support that process.
A growing body of research suggests that creatine combined with resistance training may help older adults preserve or increase lean tissue and improve strength and physical function. (PubMed)
That doesn’t mean taking creatine while sitting on the couch will magically create muscle.
The combination matters.
Resistance training, adequate protein, good nutrition, recovery, and consistency still make up the foundation.
Creatine is another tool.
Although this article isn’t just about women, I think women deserve their own section because this is an area where there is still a tremendous amount of misunderstanding.
Many women avoid creatine because they believe it will make them bulky or cause unwanted weight gain.
That simply isn’t how creatine works.
Women experience changes in hormones and metabolism throughout menstruation, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause, and aging. Researchers are now studying how these changes may interact with creatine metabolism.
A major review of creatine supplementation across the female lifespan found potential applications involving exercise performance, muscle function, cognition, mood, and healthy aging. (PubMed)
Research in postmenopausal women is especially interesting.
A recent systematic review and meta analysis found that creatine supplementation, particularly when at least 5 grams per day was combined with resistance training, produced small but meaningful improvements in lean mass and leg strength in postmenopausal women. (PubMed)
For women concerned about maintaining strength and muscle as they age, that is worth paying attention to.
No.
Creatine cannot magically create large amounts of muscle.
Building significant muscle requires progressive resistance training, adequate nutrition, sufficient protein, genetics, and time.
Some people may see their scale weight increase slightly after beginning creatine.
That doesn’t mean they gained body fat.
Creatine draws more water into muscle cells, which can increase intracellular water and sometimes body weight.
This is very different from gaining fat.
For someone who is obsessed with watching the scale, this is important to understand.
A pound gained on the scale does not automatically mean a pound of fat was gained.
This is another reason we talk so much at Bodies By Design about looking beyond body weight and paying attention to body composition, strength, muscle mass, measurements, health markers, and physical performance.
This is where the old bodybuilding stereotype really starts to fall apart.
The brain has enormous energy demands, and the creatine phosphocreatine system plays a role in brain energy metabolism as well.
Researchers have therefore started looking at whether increasing creatine availability could potentially influence memory, attention, processing speed, mental fatigue, and cognitive performance.
A 2024 systematic review and meta analysis examining 16 randomized controlled trials found positive effects on memory, attention time, and information processing speed. The researchers considered the evidence for memory moderately certain, while evidence for some of the other cognitive outcomes was less certain and requires additional research. (PubMed)
That distinction is important.
I don’t think we should start telling people that creatine is a miracle brain supplement.
But I also don’t think we should continue talking about it as if its only purpose is helping someone bench press more weight.
There is enough research now to recognize that creatine and brain health belong in the same conversation.
This is another fascinating area of emerging research.
Creatine is not a sleeping pill and should not be marketed as one.
However, researchers are looking at whether creatine may help the brain maintain energy availability during periods when we are sleep deprived.
A 2024 study found that a single high dose of creatine during sleep deprivation improved certain measures of cognitive performance and processing speed while also influencing markers of brain energy metabolism. (PubMed)
A newer study also found that creatine helped reduce deterioration in several cognitive tasks during prolonged sleep deprivation. (PubMed)
There is also some early research looking directly at sleep.
In one six week study involving naturally menstruating women who took 5 grams of creatine daily, researchers found an increase in total sleep duration on resistance training days compared with placebo. However, there was no significant improvement in overall chronic sleep quality. (PubMed)
That is why we need to use the right language.
Creatine doesn’t replace sleep.
But the possibility that creatine may help support brain energy and cognitive performance when sleep and recovery are compromised is extremely interesting.
And we are likely going to learn much more about this relationship in the coming years.
This is probably one of the most common questions I get.
For most healthy adults who decide to use creatine, a very practical recommendation is:
Not only on workout days.
Every day.
Creatine works by gradually increasing and maintaining creatine stores in your muscles.
You don’t need to take it immediately before your workout.
You don’t need to take it immediately after your workout.
And you don’t need to cycle on and off it.
Consistency matters much more than perfect timing.
The NIH describes a common maintenance dose as 3 to 5 grams per day. (ODS)
No.
A loading phase is optional.
The traditional loading protocol is approximately:
20 grams per day for 5 to 7 days, divided into four 5 gram servings.
After that, you move to approximately:
3 to 5 grams per day.
Loading simply fills your muscle creatine stores more quickly.
If you don’t want to load, you can start taking 3 to 5 grams daily. It will take a little longer for muscle creatine levels to become saturated, but you can still reach the same general destination. (ODS)
For the overwhelming majority of our clients, I see no reason to make this complicated.
Take 3 to 5 grams every day and be consistent.
This is another area where supplement marketing makes something simple sound complicated.
You will find all kinds of products:
Creatine HCl
Buffered creatine
Creatine nitrate
Creatine ethyl ester
Micronized creatine
And many others.
The form with the largest amount of research behind it remains:
The NIH notes that creatine monohydrate is the most widely used and studied form and that more expensive forms have not consistently been proven superior. (ODS)
You don’t need the fanciest container.
You need a reputable product containing creatine monohydrate.
Creatine has been studied extensively and has a strong safety record in healthy adults when used appropriately.
The NIH reports few safety concerns at typical doses and notes that longer term research has also supported its safety in healthy individuals. (ODS)
Creatine can sometimes cause a small increase in body weight due largely to increased water stored with the muscle.
Some people can also experience gastrointestinal discomfort, particularly when taking large amounts at once.
If you have kidney disease, another significant medical condition, take medications that could affect kidney function, or have been advised to restrict supplements, talk with your physician before starting creatine.
Pregnant or breastfeeding women should also discuss supplementation with their healthcare provider because research in these populations is still developing.
I don’t want someone to read this article, buy creatine, and suddenly think they have solved the health puzzle.
You haven’t.
Creatine isn’t going to fix a poor diet.
It isn’t going to replace strength training.
It isn’t going to replace protein.
It isn’t going to overcome five hours of sleep every night.
And it isn’t going to replace consistency.
At Bodies By Design, we continue to come back to the fundamentals:
Strength training
Adequate protein
Cardiovascular exercise
Daily movement
Good nutrition
Sleep and recovery
Consistency
When those pieces are in place, supplements can play a supporting role.
And based on the amount of research that has accumulated over the years, creatine deserves serious consideration.
Creatine isn’t just for bodybuilders anymore.
In reality, it never was.
It is a naturally occurring compound involved in cellular energy production that has been researched extensively for exercise performance and strength.
Today, scientists are also looking at its potential role in preserving muscle as we age, supporting women’s health, maintaining physical function, improving certain areas of cognitive performance, and helping the brain deal with periods of increased metabolic stress such as sleep deprivation.
Some of those benefits have decades of research behind them.
Others are still emerging.
But the conversation around creatine has clearly changed.
For most healthy adults who choose to supplement, 3 to 5 grams of creatine monohydrate per day is a simple, inexpensive, and well researched approach.
No fancy formula.
No complicated cycling.
No bodybuilding requirement.
Just another potential tool to combine with strength training, proper nutrition, recovery, and a healthy lifestyle.
Committed to your overall health,
This article is intended for general educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized medical or nutrition advice.