# The Creatine Debate



## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

*THE GAME*

Leg's not fresh? That sucks, you must eat more protien, right? Well creatine is one of em, and it takes pounds and pounds of chicken to equal a few grams of it, so that's out of the picture for cyclists. 3/4 proteins are max'd out, so our muscle recovery is at that rate. This is why cyclists stress proper recovery, so we don't constantly plateau.

What if I said, **** that noise? Well I have, for years now, and since I crafted it for cycling it works again. Creatine always works. It worked for me in running during plateaus. It worked for me in lifting and football during plateaus, and when taken properly for cycling purposes, it helps there as well. And a lot.



*THE RULES*

*100mg a day. (1/12th daily dose)*

3 months on.
(No need to cycle however)
1 month off.

*<80 F only. This means no summers, period.*
(For safety reasons)
Proper water and diet intake. No no's are still no no's, like coffee and coke.

*RESULTS*

What this equates to is creatine accelerating the rate at which your muscles recover, allowing your training volume to increase, and allowing you recieve those benefits in substantially less time.


*PREEMPTIVE STRIKE*

To anyone who say's this isn't beneficial to cycling in a time frame of 4 hours a day max, 10 - 20 hours a week max *just because I have never exceeded this due to safety paranoia*, you are dead wrong. Huzzah's are in order.

*IHEARTBENBEN ZOOM ZOOM CLUB RECRUITMENT MESSAGE*

To anyone who has ever thought of trying it, do it this way. Do it now. 1200mg plus a day is crazy and counter productive to what we are trying to achieve with a small dose. Do it my way and increase muscle recovery. You would have to eat pounds and pounds of meat to equal 100mg of creatine. This is the main reason a small dose will yield substantial gains.

Let the craziness begin. I sincerely hope you try it and enjoy cycling further as I have!

*DISCLAIMER* : The FDA does NOT regulate the supplement market and there are only a few creatines out there that we know are not carcinogenic. Therefore most creatines are potentially dangerous. I also have used the same bottle of GNC Amp Crea 189 for three years now, and is possibly carcinogenic....

*DISCLAIMER 2* : Creatine has side effects and those will occur in some people, especially when first starting. These include head aches *WATER, cramping *possibly water, and constipation. Other side effects are speed. Some creatines are not pure, and have caffine, such as mine. I have come to tolerate these as they still happen from time to time, they are not that bad IME.


*
If you are looking for something to give you a slight edge, try this guys. Come with free "wow I feel fast" effect.*


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## Creakyknees (Sep 21, 2003)

Creatine makes me cramp. Your mileage may vary. 

Also, it gets hot here in the summer. 

However, I've had good sensations with BCAA powder. Maybe placebo. Dunno.


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## todayilearned (Sep 28, 2011)

Phosphocreatine helps with regeneration of ATP and GTP which supposedly is the mechanism behind faster recovery.


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## ChuckDiesel (Apr 16, 2011)

I have used Creatine supplements in the past for weightlifting and have had good results. It's proven to work. I've never really thought of using it for cycling. I have a jug of it laying around that came free with a protein supplement I bought a while back. Maybe I should start using a little and see how I feel on it. Reading the label, it says to go very heavy on usage the first 4-5 days to "saturate your muscles with creatine". It definitely requires you to drink more water than you are used to so if you do, don't neglect hydration.


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## richhand (Mar 10, 2012)

The body makes a gram or 2 per day, is 100mg supplement really going to offer any noticable effect?


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## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

ChuckDiesel said:


> Reading the label, it says to go very heavy on usage the first 4-5 days to "saturate your muscles with creatine".


This is recommended but I find that it tends to exacerbate negative side effects like constipation. Again, I have never experienced more strength from more creatine. 100mg feels just like 400mg. Anything past that a water retension and bloating becoming visually noticable.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

1. show us some peer-reviewed articles showing an improvement in a meaningful metric of endurance sport performance (there are many showing no effect, or even a negative effect). Conceptually, it makes little sense as the creatine-phosphocreatine system is implicated in high intensity exercise. 

2, show us an improvement that is greater than the negative effect of the 1.5 kg body weight seen with creatine supplementation.

3. show us a peer-reviewed article with effects at 100 mg/day.


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## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

stevesbike said:


> 1. show us some peer-reviewed articles showing an improvement in a meaningful metric of endurance sport performance (there are many showing no effect, or even a negative effect). Conceptually, it makes little sense as the creatine-phosphocreatine system is implicated in high intensity exercise.
> 
> 2, show us an improvement that is greater than the negative effect of the 1.5 kg body weight seen with creatine supplementation.
> 
> 3. show us a peer-reviewed article with effects at 100 mg/day.



No. This is a statement of my cycle and experience with creatine and how I use it in my cycling training. I encourage athletes to try a small dose of creatine in their daily diet, and to judge the performance that results themselves. Hopefully some will review my plan and try creatine in controlled doses. They will most likely be very pleased with the results in the following weeks.

I encourage you to do so as well.

If you want to back up my hypothesis based on myself as a test subject, in several athletic disciplines, then find it. Or find one bunking it. It is my experienced opinion in using creatine that this will yield a boost in your performance within the volume and time loads I set out above.

Idea > Application > Real world results. No straw man documentation required.


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## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

richhand said:


> The body makes a gram or 2 per day, is 100mg supplement really going to offer any noticable effect?


IME, yes. >100mg is all I take when I'm using it. 165lbs right now. Sometimes the dose may be closer to 200mg, as I am cutting pills and not caring to measure, just always get close enough.


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## JohnStonebarger (Jan 22, 2004)

iheartbenben said:


> Idea > Application > Real world results. No straw man documentation required.


If it motivates people to train harder, your plan will work with or without any effect from the creatine. No harm done, but the results won't offer anything meaningful to the debate about creatine for endurance sports.


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## den bakker (Nov 13, 2004)

iheartbenben said:


> No. This is a statement of my cycle and experience with creatine and how I use it in my cycling training. I encourage athletes to try a small dose of creatine in their daily diet, and to judge the performance that results themselves.


IME, creatine has always given me problems when training wearing white leg warmers. Just a warning to other early season users out there. Blue seems to be fine. YMMV obviously.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

You need to look up the meaning of straw man - you are providing anecdotal evidence. Peer-reviewed studies are not a straw man. They provide empirical evidence. Here is a review, which summarizes the issue (why does your post and repost of it in many threads sound like an ad?) 

Tarnopolsky, Mark A. "Caffeine and creatine use in sport." Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism 57 Suppl 2(2010):1-8.

"Conceptually, one would not expect an increase in endurance performance from creatine loading, and the increase in fat-free mass could be ergolytic in weight-supported activities such as running or climbing in cycling. In contrast to the fairly consistent evidence showing that acute creatine supplementation can enhance high-intensity sprinting performance, most studies exhibit no convincing evidence for an ergogenic effect from creatine loading (for a review, see Terjung et al. [5] ). In fact, one field study showed that creatine administration worsened exercise performance in a cross-country run [44] ."


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## NJBiker72 (Jul 9, 2011)

Interesting. The more I cycled the more I ruled out creatine. Reasoning being, I don't want the size it provides. I did use it when I was big into lifting. 

I would add that I think arginine is the most beneficial supplement out there. The increased blood flow helps recovery and helps output during rides.


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## qatarbhoy (Aug 17, 2009)

Sounds like the placebo effect is in operation.


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## richhand (Mar 10, 2012)

For a physiological effect im still not sure about such a small dose but there are certainly times when the legs are pumping away where a suffucient dose of creatine could help at the muscular level eg. hills. And if the positive effects are only due to placebo then that's not a bad thing, we all need mental stimulation. Body weight would have to be monitored of course.


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## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

stevesbike said:


> You need to look up the meaning of straw man - you are providing anecdotal evidence. Peer-reviewed studies are not a straw man. They provide empirical evidence. Here is a review, which summarizes the issue (why does your post and repost of it in many threads sound like an ad?)


By strawman I mean I am not constructing an argument, which is what you seem to be trying to do with me. I'm stating my methods with creatine, and encouraging others to experiment with creatine.

You can read all the reports you want, I've seen and read most of them. Some conflict, some say no, some say yes, yadda yadda. I use this creatine cycle. I see results. You should try this also if you are looking for a supplement that works.

Also, an ad? Really?


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## spade2you (May 12, 2009)

I had a professor who studied creatine absorption through some animal's stomach lining. I don't remember the exact animal, but the long and short of it was that the stomach lining was very similar to human stomach lining and creatine didn't pass through it. Some meat head in the auditorium seemed extremely upset by his findings and kept telling him that he was wrong and creatine works. I side with my professor, but must admit that without the meat head, it would have been a very boring presentation.


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## NJBiker72 (Jul 9, 2011)

spade2you said:


> I had a professor who studied creatine absorption through some animal's stomach lining. I don't remember the exact animal, but the long and short of it was that the stomach lining was very similar to human stomach lining and creatine didn't pass through it. Some meat head in the auditorium seemed extremely upset by his findings and kept telling him that he was wrong and creatine works. I side with my professor, but must admit that without the meat head, it would have been a very boring presentation.


Interesting. I think the experience of thousands of humans is probably stronger than one pig or whatever.

Creatine has been proven to work but I have always associated it with bulk, not something a cyclist wants.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

iheartbenben said:


> By strawman I mean I am not constructing an argument, which is what you seem to be trying to do with me. I'm stating my methods with creatine, and encouraging others to experiment with creatine.
> 
> You can read all the reports you want, I've seen and read most of them. Some conflict, some say no, some say yes, yadda yadda. I use this creatine cycle. I see results. You should try this also if you are looking for a supplement that works.
> 
> Also, an ad? Really?


Then you shouldn't have titled your thread 'creatine debate' since a debate suggests you're interested in argument. And, yes, your original post sounds like you're drafting an ad for a GNC product - it has everything but the "warning: this is for advanced athletes only. Do not take this unless you want massive, shirt-ripping gains, intense lusting from the opposite sex, and unprecedented financial success."


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## spade2you (May 12, 2009)

NJBiker72 said:


> Interesting. I think the experience of thousands of humans is probably stronger than one pig or whatever.
> 
> Creatine has been proven to work but I have always associated it with bulk, not something a cyclist wants.


His study was about absorption, not if or how well it worked, serum concentrations, etc. Absorption was very low based on the radioactive isotopes he used. At the time of his study (sometime in '03 or '04), there were no studies of absorption, serum concentrations, or area under the curve. With many supplements, we don't always know if or how much is absorbed.


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## qatarbhoy (Aug 17, 2009)

stevesbike said:


> Then you shouldn't have titled your thread 'creatine debate' since a debate suggests you're interested in argument. And, yes, your original post sounds like you're drafting an ad for a GNC product


Yes, it sounded like an ad to me, too, except I wasn't sure if it was a spoof or not.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

NJBiker72 said:


> Interesting. I think the experience of thousands of humans is probably stronger than one pig or whatever.
> 
> Creatine has been proven to work but I have always associated it with bulk, not something a cyclist wants.


An analogy would be someone saying antibiotics have been proven to work so take them for cancer  

From what I've seen creatine has been shown to work for strength and brief sprinting efforts just when you would think it would because it increases PCr content in the muscle cells and that forms a major source of energy for those types of activities. The question is has it been shown to work for endurance type activities (or even sprinting in the midst of an endurance effort)? Since the latter is a different type of animal relying on different largely on different energy systems.


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## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

stevesbike said:


> Then you shouldn't have titled your thread 'creatine debate' since a debate suggests you're interested in argument. And, yes, your original post sounds like you're drafting an ad for a GNC product - it has everything but the "warning: this is for advanced athletes only. Do not take this unless you want massive, shirt-ripping gains, intense lusting from the opposite sex, and unprecedented financial success."


Title's can't be edited.

I also blatently stated that GNC's products may very well be carcinogenic, and only offered the exact type I use for sake of thoroughness.

Honestly, GNC is crap and I wish I hadn't bought the damn thing from them almost 3 years ago. There are much better creatine products out there.


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## CoachTJCormier (Sep 16, 2011)

Creatine is a waste of money for endurance athletes. For sprint and weight lifting there "may" be some benefit. 
I was part of a study about 10 years ago (blind) and the creatine group showed less improvement then the non-creatine group. Even their sprint power out puts were lower then the non-creatine group.


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## BillyWayne (Aug 1, 2011)

I have used creatine for years with success. I use it during my power cycle of weight lifting. I have not suffered any side effects. I get stronger in this phase of training. I do not put on "bulk." You can get stronger without getting bigger if the trianing is correct. I do not take creatine during my other workout cycles. But having good power is only one factor that makes an athlete better. I find that I have other limiting factors that prevent me from attaining "awesome" status. Like my pace in my aerobic zone leaves much to be desired.


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## thumper8888 (Apr 7, 2009)

iheartbenben said:


> No. This is a statement of my cycle and experience with creatine and how I use it in my cycling training. I encourage athletes to try a small dose of creatine in their daily diet, and to judge the performance that results themselves. Hopefully some will review my plan and try creatine in controlled doses. They will most likely be very pleased with the results in the following weeks.
> 
> I encourage you to do so as well.
> 
> ...


If a supplement has been around this long and there is no peer reviewed science to back up the claims, then they're almost certainly not true.
Real world results? Real world placebo effect is more like it.


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## aclinjury (Sep 12, 2011)

Save your money and go eat real food with the family. This creatine BS... after a decade and people are still believing this crap?

But let's amuse ourselves for a moment and assume that creatin does work a little bit, but only if we're willing to put up with

- constipation
- bloating
- carcinogenic
- and probably other potentially harmful chemical in the production process (non-FDA approve right? not that the FDA is there to protect the consumers much to begin with).

Great, so now, in my search to dominate my group of weekend warrior cyclist up that hills, I'm putting my health at risk down the road. Who says only pro's put their bodies at risk in an attemp to win-at-all-cost? Seems like weekend warriors are pro's themselve


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## nightfend (Mar 15, 2009)

If it worked, the UCI and WADA would have banned it. It doesn't work for cyclists. There are no "magic" forumulations that are legal, aside from maybe caffeine.


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## robdamanii (Feb 13, 2006)

aclinjury said:


> Save your money and go eat real food with the family. This creatine BS... after a decade and people are still believing this crap?
> 
> But let's amuse ourselves for a moment and assume that creatin does work a little bit, but only if we're willing to put up with
> 
> ...


Screw that. I've got a buddy who is a DVM and offered to give me some EPO if I needed a boost (jokingly of course.)


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## cyclesport45 (Dec 10, 2007)

nightfend said:


> If it worked, the UCI and WADA would have banned it. It doesn't work for cyclists. There are no "magic" forumulations that are legal, aside from maybe caffeine.


And training harder than the bloke next to you.


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## NJBiker72 (Jul 9, 2011)

nightfend said:


> If it worked, the UCI and WADA would have banned it. It doesn't work for cyclists. There are no "magic" forumulations that are legal, aside from maybe caffeine.


Have they banned protein? Or does that not work either?

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance. Why ban it? Or try to.


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## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

cyclesport45 said:


> And training harder than the bloke next to you.


Which is what creatine allows you to do, increase your work volume. This isn't rocket science guys, creatine will not increase your watts. It will increase your overall work volume.

If you're not going to try it, do you know anything at all? No.


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## bikerjohn64 (Feb 9, 2012)

Hey guys; 
This is an interesting topic for me only because it's fairly new to me but more on the point that I have vested interest in a company that is producing a pre and post work out cream with creatine. 
The person (Dr. Joe Gabriele)came up with this idea so that it may be applied directly onto the muscle group that would benefit from it instead of something being ingested in a pill form that may cause side effects on internal organs. 
So the idea for his cream is that the "Pre Workout" cream has creatine included and the "Post Workout" cream has L-Glutamine in it. 
I'm sorry if I make it as simple as that but I'm not a nutritionist nor an athletic therapist so my knowledge in benefit is limited. There are other benefits of the cream which is included to reducing inflammation and controlling pain which originated from the cream base that I invested in. 
The product is called LivSport and is created by the makers of LivRelief and the delivery cream is called Delivra. 
Has anyone out there tried this product? If so; what were your result if any?
Thanks for taking the time to read this.


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## cyclesport45 (Dec 10, 2007)

iheartbenben said:


> If you're not going to try it, do you know anything at all? No.


Hahahahahahahaha.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

iheartbenben said:


> Which is what creatine allows you to do, increase your work volume. This isn't rocket science guys, creatine will not increase your watts. It will increase your overall work volume.
> 
> If you're not going to try it, do you know anything at all? No.


there are a lot of supplements to recommend before creatine - also, if it doesn't increase your watts, then what's the point - are you saying it just allows you to work more with no training effect?


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## iheartbenben (Mar 18, 2011)

stevesbike said:


> there are a lot of supplements to recommend before creatine - also, if it doesn't increase your watts, then what's the point - are you saying it just allows you to work more with no training effect?


Exactly what I am getting at. A few more intervals, a few more hard days, with less soreness.




I find everyone's anti-creatine rhetoric amusing as I've been hearing it for years and years now, and I've also met some other exceptionally strong athletes in running, tennis, football, and now cycling who use creatine in a manner similar to myself with great results. I recently snickered with a guy as we were wondering why they have not banned it yet...the UCI's logic pervading the mind of some posters...



If you really do the critical reading you will find that endurance athletes have been experimenting with creatine for a long time now.


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## qatarbhoy (Aug 17, 2009)

bikerjohn64 said:


> Hey guys;
> This is an interesting topic for me only because it's fairly new to me but more on the point that I have vested interest in a company that is producing a pre and post work out cream with creatine. ... The product is called LivSport and is created by the makers of LivRelief and the delivery cream is called Delivra.
> Has anyone out there tried this product? If so; what were your result if any?
> Thanks for taking the time to read this.


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## aclinjury (Sep 12, 2011)

NJBiker72 said:


> Have they banned protein? Or does that not work either?
> 
> Creatine is a naturally occurring substance. Why ban it? Or try to.


Not quite. The creatin sold in the bottle is not exactly the same as the creatin floating in your body.


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## aclinjury (Sep 12, 2011)

iheartbenben said:


> Exactly what I am getting at. A few more intervals, a few more hard days, with less soreness.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You may be doing a dis-service to readers who actually believe your stuff. Most biological systems are made up of many subsystems working together. You can't overload one subsystem (eg, dumping synthetic creatin into the body) and hope to push the whole overall system. You can't. The body has this tendency called homeostasis, e.g., if you overload a subsystem using synthetic mean, then the body will somehow shut that subsystem down, therefore making you more dependent on the synthetic substance.

This is a very basic concept in all biological systems, no?

This thread reminds of reading a bunch of thread on creatin posted by a bunch of meatheads back 10 years ago when I was still into powerlifting and creatin was the craze. I never bought into that crap back then, not anytime soon today either.


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## Chris-X (Aug 4, 2011)

Deca works better than creatine.


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## NJBiker72 (Jul 9, 2011)

aclinjury said:


> Not quite. The creatin sold in the bottle is not exactly the same as the creatin floating in your body.


Not exactly but you can get the same thing from eating beef. Just need to eat 3 cows/day. 

Same with protein. Whey isolate is not the same as soy or egg but still legal. 

I think there is unquestioned benefit to each used properly. 

The supplement that seems most questionable is Argenine but that also seems to be more accepted again. Personally I think that works real well and it is often used with Creatine.


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## Sprokets (Mar 6, 2012)

Save your money and just eat healthy.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

If anyone is really interested in the evidence you could always go to Pubmed and look up the research that is available. I don't really care enough to do it since I'm not going to take creatine whether it works or not for an enhancing endurance performance or any other performance for that matter.

I do think it's important to keep in mind since a lot of folks posting here seem to either be glossing over or simply missing the important point that there are by and large two different performance domains. There's the strength/sprinting domain and then there's the endurance domain. The type of athlete that performs well at and drugs that enhance the performance within those two domains are largely independent.

Cycling is interesting because there are often "sprints" within an endurance context. It shouldn't be all that hard to parse out if creatine "works" for improving endurance, or sprints within an endurance effort, or just sprints or just "strength" or none of the above.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

Dwayne Barry said:


> If anyone is really interested in the evidence you could always go to Pubmed and look up the research that is available. I don't really care enough to do it since I'm not going to take creatine whether it works or not for an enhancing endurance performance or any other performance for that matter.
> 
> I do think it's important to keep in mind since a lot of folks posting here seem to either be glossing over or simply missing the important point that there are by and large two different performance domains. There's the strength/sprinting domain and then there's the endurance domain. The type of athlete that performs well at and drugs that enhance the performance within those two domains are largely independent.
> 
> Cycling is interesting because there are often "sprints" within an endurance context. It shouldn't be all that hard to parse out if creatine "works" for improving endurance, or sprints within an endurance effort, or just sprints or just "strength" or none of the above.


There's evidence that the independence of these domains is just another dogma:

Sunde A, Støren Ø, Bjerkass M, Larsen MH, Hoff J, Helgerud J. Maximal strength training improves cycling economy in competitive cyclists.J Strength Cond Res 2009

Aagaard, P, and J L LAndersen. "Effects of strength training on endurance capacity in top-level endurance athletes." Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports 20 Suppl 2(2010):39-47.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

stevesbike said:


> There's evidence that the independence of these domains is just another dogma:
> 
> Sunde A, Støren Ø, Bjerkass M, Larsen MH, Hoff J, Helgerud J. Maximal strength training improves cycling economy in competitive cyclists.J Strength Cond Res 2009
> 
> Aagaard, P, and J L LAndersen. "Effects of strength training on endurance capacity in top-level endurance athletes." Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports 20 Suppl 2(2010):39-47.


I'm not sure that those really pertain to the point I was making; e.g. show me a world class sprinter that is also a world class marathoner, or a marathoner that gets the same boost from anabolic steroids as EPO, etc. but anyway, doesn't really matter. Obviously part of integrated whole but still there are different energy systems with different capacities and rates of energy production and muscle strength/size seems to matter more to short, sprint like activities and not so much to endurance type activities.

It doesn't mean that one sort of training can't have positive affects on the other independent of the "domains" I was referring to...for example I think it is fairly well established that strength training improves running economy not because it makes you stronger or changes energetics but because it changes stiffness properties of the musculo-tendinous unit, and in running you use certain tendons like springs, so if stiffer you get more of an elastic rebound, hence improvements in economy.

Interesting that one of those references cites cycling since my impression is that in general most studies haven't shown strength training to improve cycling efficiency and the explanation for the difference was that there is no elastic rebound in cycling unlike running.

My point still remains it shouldn't be hard to parse out what creatine improves and what it doesn't regardless of the mechanism. Maybe it improves everything, I don't know. From what I understand of it's mechanism I wouldn't think it would improve most types of endurance efforts.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

Dwayne Barry said:


> I'm not sure that those really pertain to the point I was making; e.g. show me a world class sprinter that is also a world class marathoner, or a marathoner that gets the same boost from anabolic steroids as EPO, etc. but anyway, doesn't really matter. Obviously part of integrated whole but still there are different energy systems with different capacities and rates of energy production and muscle strength/size seems to matter more to short, sprint like activities and not so much to endurance type activities.
> 
> It doesn't mean that one sort of training can't have positive affects on the other independent of the "domains" I was referring to...for example I think it is fairly well established that strength training improves running economy not because it makes you stronger or changes energetics but because it changes stiffness properties of the musculo-tendinous unit, and in running you use certain tendons like springs, so if stiffer you get more of an elastic rebound, hence improvements in economy.
> 
> ...


I agree - was just pointing out that training in one domain may have more benefits for another than often thought in cycling (so creatine COULD have an indirect effect). Aagaard's research is interesting since it involves elite cyclists, so the training effects aren't simply from using untrained subjects. Also, many cycling studies have focused on endurance type resistance training (high reps) whereas the more recent work is using low reps (5-6). In terms of mechanism, Aagaard reports it may be due to type IIA fiber proportions increases and type IIX decreases. 

Aagaard, P, et al. "Effects of resistance training on endurance capacity and muscle fiber composition in young top-level cyclists." Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports 21.6 (2011):e298-e307.


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## Fixed (May 12, 2005)

*gains*

Greatest gains I've found were from Cheetos and Rock Star. Really.


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## Cinelli 82220 (Dec 2, 2010)

bikerjohn64 said:


> a pre and post work out cream with creatine


LOLZ. ROTFLMAO. 



> I invested in.


Seriously? I hope you didn't invest too much.


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## Cinelli 82220 (Dec 2, 2010)

stevesbike said:


> Sunde A, Støren Ø, Bjerkass M, Larsen MH, Hoff J, Helgerud J. Maximal strength training improves cycling economy in competitive cyclists.J Strength Cond Res 2009
> 
> Aagaard, P, and J L LAndersen. "Effects of strength training on endurance capacity in top-level endurance athletes." Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports 20 Suppl 2(2010):39-47.


These studies refer to strength training as a benefit to cycling. Although creatine may/may not help strength training, the OP referred to creatine as a direct benefit to cycling. 
I do not think it benefits cycling. I believe it helps in the gym but not on the bike.


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## robdamanii (Feb 13, 2006)

A Dunkin' Donuts Sausage Egg and Cheese was always the perfect ride fuel for me.


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## robdamanii (Feb 13, 2006)

Cinelli 82220 said:


> These studies refer to strength training as a benefit to cycling. Although creatine may/may not help strength training, the OP referred to creatine as a direct benefit to cycling.
> I do not think it benefits cycling. I believe it helps in the gym but not on the bike.


It may help on the bike...for about 15 seconds. After that it's burned up and won't be of any use to you.


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## NealH (May 2, 2004)

You will get a lot more good protein and nutrition from that sausage egg and cheese biscuit than that artificially generated creatine that no one can prove what it really is and it the FDC doesn't even endorse it. Of course you'll get a nice dose of cholesterol with that biscuit at least it tastes a lot better than powder.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

Cinelli 82220 said:


> These studies refer to strength training as a benefit to cycling. Although creatine may/may not help strength training, the OP referred to creatine as a direct benefit to cycling.
> I do not think it benefits cycling. I believe it helps in the gym but not on the bike.


yes, but if it helps in the gym, and if strength training helps cycling, then it helps cycling by the law of transitivity!


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

NealH said:


> You will get a lot more good protein and nutrition from that sausage egg and cheese biscuit than that artificially generated creatine that no one can prove what it really is and it the FDC doesn't even endorse it. Of course you'll get a nice dose of cholesterol with that biscuit at least it tastes a lot better than powder.


My understanding is that there is in all practicality no way to consume enough food that you get these "therapeutic" levels of creatine. My understanding of the (primary) mechanism by which creatine works is thought to be by raising the level of PCr in muscle cells, which is the quick burst energy system, with a very low capacity. So it makes perfect sense that if you increase PCr you would improve performance in things like sprinting or weightlifting where PCr provides a good bulk of the energy. OTOH, as the duration of the effort goes out to many seconds to minutes to hours, the contribution of PCr to the overall energetics becomes negligible.


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## NJBiker72 (Jul 9, 2011)

Dwayne Barry said:


> My understanding is that there is in all practicality no way to consume enough food that you get these "therapeutic" levels of creatine. My understanding of the (primary) mechanism by which creatine works is thought to be by raising the level of PCr in muscle cells, which is the quick burst energy system, with a very low capacity. So it makes perfect sense that if you increase PCr you would improve performance in things like sprinting or weightlifting where PCr provides a good bulk of the energy. OTOH, as the duration of the effort goes out to many seconds to minutes to hours, the contribution of PCr to the overall energetics becomes negligible.


You would have to eat a lot.

The Amount Of Creatine In Meat | LIVESTRONG.COM


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