Should You Be Using Creatine To Gain More Muscle?

Creatine is one of the few supplements that fall into the “must haves” category for natural lifters who are looking for maximum strength and hypertrophy.

Getting enough of it in your diet is surprisingly difficult to maintain, so supplementing 5 grams of Creatine Monohydrate per day has become a staple for many advanced lifters out there.

If you are prone to facial bloating from creatine and it bothers you, then consider that before you start taking it every day.

But for the simplicity of this article we will be speaking from the perspective of how creatine aids in muscle building and physique progression.

Does Creatine Cause Temporary Results Because A Lot Of It Is Water Retention?

The positive benefits of creatine are largely dictated by its ability to swell the muscle cells up with water.

This will help lubricate your joints to avoid injury, help stretch the muscular fascia–inducing more overall improvements in muscle size, and it will make you stronger.

While some of these benefits will diminish after you stop supplementation, the size and strength gained from creatine is not 100% dependent on it, meaning that the results can and will be sustained.

Does Creatine Actually Build Muscle Or Does It Just Inflate The Muscle With Water?

One common concern that people have with creatine is that they think it simply inflates the muscles with water, creating the illusion of greater muscular size, but then once they stop using creatine, they will lose all of the size that they gained.

Keep in mind that the human body is primarily made of water, and that over 70% of muscle is water. (This is why it is incredibly important to ensure that you are drinking only pure, high-quality distilled water everyday.)

Due to creatine’s properties and its tendency to cause cell enlargement with water, your muscles can experience a great increase in overall fullness and size from during supplementation. However, despite what many people believe, not all of the size gained is due to water.

Creatine helps to regenerate ATP during workouts. This greatly improves the muscular recovery process, and leads to an enhanced level of muscle protein synthesis. (It makes your muscles heal and grow faster than normal.)

The muscular fullness from the increased water retention is actually a welcomed benefit in many regards as it will result in better pumps, more strength, and lessened chance of injury. All of which lead to greater overall muscular development.

What Type Of Creatine Should You Get?

There are so many concoctions and fancy proprietary blends on the shelves of supplement stores nowadays.

Don’t get tricked into buying these new fangled “bloat-free” products, or other “new-science” garbage.

There is only one tried and true form that you should touch, and that is Creatine Monohydrate.

Get plain old micronized Creatine Monohydrate from any grocery store, and have 5 grams of it per day, every single day.

It isn’t more complicated than that.

Take your 5 grams of Creatine Monohydrate every day, and that’s the extent of what you need to worry about.

No need to worry about timing, no need to worry about loading it, and no need to worry about all the different types of Creatine.

Just get micronized Creatine Monohydrate and you are good to go.