When you think about creatine, you are probably not thinking about your regular, run-of-the-mill nutritional supplementation. You have likely heard about its reputation as one of the most popular and demanded products of its kind – and for solid reasons. It’s scientifically proven effects on exercise and body performance leave no space for doubt about its efficiency and more than justifies the renown it carries.
In today’s blog we will analyze the different ways in which creatine can help athletic performance by studying its positive properties and effects on our body.
Enter THE IMPACT OF CREATINE ON ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE!
THE ESSENTIALS OF CREATINE
Creatine is, essentially, an amino acid that our body produces as part of its regular working. While it can also be found in products such as red meat and seafood, we naturally generate it at a rate of 1 gram a day approximately. Creatine is distributed to tissues that have high demands of energy, for instance our brain and muscles.
It also has a fundamental part in energy production, especially during physical activities that are high in intensity and short in duration. Since it is stored in our muscles as phosphocreatine (creatine’s active principle), it helps the regeneration of adenosine triphosphate, the primary energy currency of cells. This process improves our power and strength during exercise.
EFFECTS OF CREATINE ON THREE LEVELS
Before going any further in the specifics of the role of creatine in improving athletic performance, we will briefly analyze three levels in which it has a significant effect:
oxygen demand
Intense workouts require your body to take in more oxygen. By using creatine, you can reduce your oxygen needs, as it harnesses phosphocreatine in your system. This boost often leads to improved performance in activities which involve cardiorespiratory endurance – but we will see more about that later.
lactate threshold
Exercise intensity can only be sustained for so long before fatigue sets in. Creatine plays a vital role in boosting your body’s capacity to maintain this intensity, allowing you to enhance your peak performance for extended periods during workouts and sports practice.
glycogen stores
Glycogen stores, which provide vital sugar-based energy for your cells, tend to run low more quickly during intense workouts. Creatine helps increase these stores, enhancing your performance and speeding up recovery by promoting better cell health.
On a global perspective, the most apparent effects of creatine on athletic performance involve a boost of high-intensity exercise performance, improved muscular strength and power, and an increase in muscle mass, and promoted of the effects of resistance training on strength and muscle mass. Let’s check this a bit more in depth.
creatine's role in muscle strength
Muscular strength refers to our capacity to apply force during activities, whether it involves lifting weights or engaging in movement. It plays a vital role in many physical pursuits, including various intermittent sports and specialized exercises like bodybuilding and weightlifting.
A significant advantage of creatine is its ability to enhance strength and power output during workouts, leading to notable improvements in performance for high-intensity tasks. As we discussed a bit earlier, taking creatine while training helps quickly restore ATP levels. This replenishment is essential for strength training sessions, which typically last less than 30 seconds and are performed at high intensity.
For instance, a recent study demonstrates that short-term creatine supplementation can significantly enhance maximal power and strength. Moreover, it also boosts performance during sets of high-intensity muscle contractions, improves single-effort sprinting capabilities, and increases work output in repeated sprinting. Athletes have been shown to gain up to 15% in muscle strength from this supplementation.
Additionally, when it comes to muscle strength, research suggests that creatine supplementation may help counteract the progressive loss of muscle mass, strength, and functionality associated with aging, commonly referred to as sarcopenia.
time for cardiorespiratory endurance
Elaborating on one of our previous sections, cardiorespiratory endurance refers to our ability to engage in activities that elevate our heart rate for an extended period. Activities like long-distance running and swimming are prime examples of exercises that rely heavily on this type of endurance. This aspect of fitness is also crucial for performing less intense yet sustained activities.
Creatine supplementation has shown significant benefits in several key areas. It essentially helps maintain ATP production, enhancing real-time performance and reducing lactic acid buildup, which allows for longer training sessions – as we will also examine in the next section.
creatine and muscular endurance
Muscular endurance is the capacity of our muscles to keep working without succumbing to fatigue. High levels of muscular endurance are beneficial for various physical activities, significantly enhancing performance in endurance sports by boosting the aerobic capabilities of our muscles. Additionally, it plays a vital role in maintaining good posture and stability, as well as supporting our performance in everyday tasks.
On this aspect, the effects of the aforementioned role of creatine in boosting glycogen levels come into play, ultimately improving performance and speeding up recovery through its beneficial effects on cell health.
Research indicates that individuals who incorporate creatine into their diet experience reduced muscle damage, inflammation, and soreness after running distances of 30-40 kilometers. It is just another piece of evidence of the synergy between the natural cardiorespiratory endurance and the added muscle endurance gained from targeted training and creatine intake.
our conclusions
That’s all about the impact of creatine on athletic performance for today! Enough evidence about the benefits of creatine supplementation regarding this topic has been provided so as to dissipate any remaining doubt about its efficiency. Through a general analysis of key factors of athetic performance – such as muscular strength, cardiorespiratory endurance and muscular endurance -, as well as other factors of relevance like gycogen stores and lactate threshold, we have cemented what science has been consistently proving for the past few decades: creatine’s reputation as one of the best of its kind is firmly established in factual evidence.
Creatine as a nutritional supplement can be found in many formulas. Our personal recommendation is to include one which contains creatine monohydrate and phosphocreatine – remember: the active principle of creatine. Check out this article to learn more about it.
The unique formula of Clonapure® delivers immediate energy to your muscles, boosting overall performance and speeding up recovery times. It’s produced in a GMP-certified facility, ensuring its purity and quality through rigorous testing with HPLC methods. Ready to try Clonapure®? This is the right place!
