How To Use Creatine For Beginners | How To Take Creatine For Muscle Growth

YouTube, what is going on? Welcome back to the channel. Welcome to the video. It's your first time watching the video. And in this video, I'm going to answer every single question that you have about creatine. Probably won't answer every single question because there'll probably be another question I didn't hit. But I seriously sat here and thought— I wrote down like every single question that I could think of about creatine. And we're gonna answer them today here. in this video. So without further ado, let's just dive right into it. First and foremost, what does creatine do? Without getting all scientific on you, if you want to learn the science behind the ATP process and the amino acids and how it replenishes, you can look that stuff up outside of this video. Essentially, for the very simple terms, creatine is just going to help Boost your performance. It's going to help you lift more weight. It's going to help you do more reps. It's going to help you have better endurance, have better recovery, have better stamina. It's going to help your workout performance, which if it helps your workout performance, you're going to do some more weight. You're going to do some more reps. You're going to have more endurance, more stamina, push harder in your workouts. You can recover better, which can then make you going into your next round of workouts. Since you recovered better, you can push even harder. All these things start to stack on top of each other. So from that right there, you're going to see more progress. You're going to get stronger, build muscle, change your body more. It's a great supplement. Now what I will say is this, I just gave you all those things. It's not a steroid. Okay? When I say it's going to improve your performance, you can lift more weight. For example, I don't mean if you're squatting 200 pounds right now, when you go and take creatine, I don't mean you're going to magically be able to squat 250 in a month. Absolutely not. No. What I do mean is you might be able to do an extra rep or 2 here and there. You might be able to do an extra 5 pounds here and there. You know, I always tell people like an extra 2 to 5%, like think about like in your workouts being able to do like 2, 3, 4, 5% more in your workouts. It's not going to make or break your workouts. I didn't even write this down, but the first thing is you don't have to take it. It's not like a necessary supplement that you have to take. I will say, It is the most researched supplement out there. And actually I'm going to link here below. I meant to say this earlier, but I'm going to link here below. I'm going to answer all these questions, right? I'll link here below the studies that I can refer to. And if you're somebody who's going to like grill me on like, where's your source, bro? My source is below in the description of this video. So feel free to check those studies out if you would like to, but it is the most researched supplement. So Yes, it is going to help get you some extra results, but this is again the extra. Don't think of this as like, oh, this is a staple. Like, I would much rather you spend the time and money on getting a real strength training program, on making sure your nutrition is in check. Again, this is a supplement. This is meant to supplement your current training and nutrition program. I don't care if you're taking creatine, if your workouts are dog shit, it's not going to help you. I don't care if you're taking creatine, If you're eating 30 grams of protein per day, creatine is not going to save your ass. And so creatine is a supplement. You don't need it. You need to make sure you have your basic fundamentals down first. And then if you are somebody who wants that extra 2, 3, 4, 5%, then you can look at taking creatine. I am somebody who I would hope I have my workouts in check. I'm a fucking trainer. I have my workouts in check. My nutrition is very dialed in. I sleep 8 to 9 hours per night. I got all my stuff. So, and I'm somebody who cares about the extra 2, 3, 4, 5% in the gym because here's the thing you have to remember. If you do an extra 2 reps here, an extra 5 pounds there, an extra 1 rep here, all that stuff starts to add up over time and you know, you'll be able to make more progress. Like I talked about earlier, you'll be able to make more progress with this. So it's going to help you for sure, but it's not steroids. And if you don't have your other things in check first, I would get those other things in check first. Make sure you're Your fundamentals are there, then you can stack on top creatine. So that's the first question I didn't even write down. Number 2, what kind should you take? Okay. This is not like a sponsored video. I am just going to show you the brand and the supplement company that I trust and that I work with. You don't have to buy this one. Okay? If you want to buy this one, the link will be in the description below. It's called Legion Athletics and it's called Recharge. Brand, Legion Athletics. Recharge, the name of the product. You can get this one if you want to. You can use my code Eric to get 20% off. You don't have to, okay? But you should be getting a creatine monohydrate. There's going to be like 3, 4, 5, 6, 69 different kinds of creatine. Just get a creatine monohydrate. And if you can, get a micronized creatine monohydrate. And I'll tell you why. You should get a micronized creatine monohydrate later in the video if you stick around. But the creatine monohydrate, I say that kind of creatine because that is the creatine that's actually studied. There's over, I think, 500 studies on creatine. The 500 studies are done on creatine monohydrate. So all these other types of creatines, the benefits of creatine that we know about have come from those studies. All of those studies are creatine monohydrate. So to me, Why would you buy any other form of creatine if it's not the one that's actually been studied on to get the benefits? You should probably be getting a creatine monohydrate. And again, I prefer getting a micronized creatine monohydrate. I'll tell you why later in the video. But again, this one right here is a micronized creatine monohydrate. You can get this one if you want to. So that's number 2. Number 3, should men and women, or I guess can men and women both take it? Yes. Like I said earlier, it's not automatically going to make you like big and bulky. You're not going to like grow a beard or like start growing chest hair just because you're taking creatine. Like it's fine if you want to get stronger, build some more muscle definition. And again, I say build some more muscle. I don't mean you're going to turn into a bodybuilder. I have spent my entire life trying to be a bodybuilder. I'm far from it. Okay. So like it's very difficult to get big and bulky. from you taking creatine. You're not going to get big and bulky from just taking creatine. Okay, so yes, men and women can both take it. You don't need a different brand, you don't need a different— like, just take creatine monohydrate. Men and women can both take it. Okay, number 4, do you need to load it? And we can talk about the proper dosing size, uh, proper dosing amount right now as well. So you might have heard before, you You need to load creatine, taking like 20, 30 grams in 3 or 4 days period of time. No, I don't believe you need to load creatine. The reason people tell you to load creatine is so it saturates your muscles a little bit quicker. It doesn't matter whether it takes you 4 days to saturate your muscles or 7 days to saturate your muscles. Your muscles are going to get saturated with creatine anyway, so I don't really see a point in loading, wasting 20, 30, 40 grams of creatine in 3 days just to like saturate your muscles quicker. Your muscles will get saturated regardless, like if it takes you 7 days or if it takes you 10 days or if it takes you 4 days, it really doesn't matter because we're going to talk about how long you should take creatine and, you know, if you should cycle it and so on and so forth. But it's not going to matter. You don't need to load creatine. Just take 5 grams of creatine every single day. There have recently been some studies, I believe, that may have pointed to if you weigh more and you have way more lean muscle mass, like, like myself, for example, if somebody is 250, 260, 270 and they have much more lean muscle mass, there may be some merit to that person taking a little bit more, like maybe up to 10 grams per day. But I don't even want to recommend that to you because the current research out on it is not that conclusive yet. Again, you might be that person, but even me, like right now I'm still currently taking 5 grams per day. As I maybe dive into the research a bit more, I might up it and I'll let you know. But as of right now, I'm just taking 5 grams per day. So 5 grams per day should be what you are taking. And again, make sure you read the label on whichever creatine that you buy because you should be getting 5 grams per day. Some people, like, it'll only say 3 grams or 2.5 grams or whatever it is. Because again, this is important because if you don't have the 5 grams per day, going back to the studies I talked about earlier, all of the studies were on 5 grams per day. So all of the benefits that came from those studies were on 5 grams per day. So if you're only taking 2 grams per day, then you're probably not going to get the benefits of creatine because you're not getting it in a proper dosing. So if you want to make sure you're taking 5 grams per day, okay? And that's the next question. Do you need to cycle it? No, you do not need to cycle creatine. Creatine is something that you can take All year round. Now, if you want to cycle it, we can talk a little bit later about what happens when you stop taking creatine. Or if you're somebody who's asking, well, isn't it bad for your kidneys? No, it's not bad for your kidneys if you have normal functioning kidneys. Now, if you're somebody who has preexisting kidney issues, which I would hope you know about, like, you know, doing your annual checkups and things of that nature, if you're somebody who you know you have pre-existing kidney issues, then I would say absolutely check with your doctor first. And like, I'll just say this out there for legal reasons, I am not a doctor. So all of this, uh, advice that I'm giving you, I am not prescribing anything to you, just giving my 2 cents and my opinion. Yay for legal reasons. But no, as long as you have normal functioning kidneys, you should not be worried about the kidney damage or that kind of stuff. Because what most people don't actually realize as well is creatine is also found in food. So like, for example, red meat, a steak, there is creatine in steak. So it's a natural thing. It's just the amount of red meat you would have to eat to get 5 grams of creatine per day is an absurd amount of red meat. And most people are not having that much, nor do I think it might even be healthy to have that much red meat. So hence why creatine is a supplement and you can buy it and the proper dosing and so on and so forth. But no, you don't inherently need to cycle it and you should not be worried about kidney issues. So as long as you have proper functioning kidneys. Now, number 7, should you be worried about hair loss when it comes to creatine? The answer to this is no. There was one study, one, One study where they had people lose their hair because of taking creatine. Number one, it's only one study out of fucking how many studies. And again, I will link here, I think it's a research review, I think covering 25 different studies that like specifically talked about hair loss and creatine. So you can check it out here below if you want to. But literally, I think it's— I forget the exact number. I think it's 25, but the other 24 studies were like Yeah, no, you don't have to worry about hair loss. It doesn't cause hair loss. There was like one study that was like, oh, there might be some hair loss correlated, and there were other factors at play in that particular study. They weren't testing people for, let's just say, other performance-enhancing drugs. So there may be some other things at play in that study that were not included. So no, you should not be worried about losing your hair when taking creatine. And again, if you want to check out the study, I'll link that here below. Number 8, what is the best time of day or when should you take creatine? And on top of that, should you take it even on your rest days? Okay, so number 1, when is the best time of day to take creatine? There's 2 answers here. The most optimal times to take creatine are number 1, post-workout with some carbohydrates. So trying to get your creatine in roughly 30 to 60 minutes post-workout with some sort of carbohydrates. Because what's going to happen is if you take it with the carbohydrates, it can shuttle into your muscles that much quicker. So, and the most optimal time would be post-workout, 30 to 60 minutes with carbs. And if you're not working out that day, you should be taking it, or I guess the most optimal time to be taking it would be your meal with the highest amounts of carbohydrates. Because again, those carbohydrates can shuttle the creatine to your muscle cells. So those are the most optimal times. You probably heard the other answer of like, yes, you should take it every single day. Yes, that includes rest days, every single day. Because I talked earlier about saturating your muscles with the creatine, right? The whole point of it is you need to take it every single day to saturate your muscles. Because if you skip, if you're not taking it 3 days, 4 days a week, well then you're not going to have the creatine saturation, which means you're not going to get the benefits of creatine because it's not staying in your muscles. So you need to take it every single day. What happens if you miss a day? Just take it the next day and don't miss the next fucking day. Like, try to remember to take it every single day. And that's the other point to this. The most optimal way I told you was post-workout and on your rest days, the meal with the highest amount of carbs. The most important thing, to be quite frank with you, is just take it every single day. So whenever you are going to remember to take it, like for example, this Recharge right here, it says take it post-workout. Again, actually it says post-workout and I think it actually says on the, yeah, on your rest days, take it with the meal that are biggest in carbs because Legion is actually a really good fucking brand. But I had people who are like, hey, the only time I remember to take it is in the morning. And I'm like, cool, take it in the morning. Like as long as you take it every single day, that is the most important part because if you take it every single day, that will saturate your muscles with the creatine, which you're going to get the benefits you want from it then. So the most optimal, if you can remember to do that, do it. But if not, that's fine. Just take it every single day. Yes, including rest days. Number 9, should you be drinking more water when you're taking creatine? Well, I guess this would somewhat depend on how much water you are currently drinking, but the answer is you don't need to go like gung-ho and like, oh, I gotta drink a gallon of water a day because now I'm taking creatine. No, you don't gotta go crazy. Like, you should be drinking water anyway to begin with. Yes. So if you're somebody who's already drinking a pretty good amount of water, I don't even like to give like calculations or ounces or whatever it is. But you know, if you're somebody who, you know, you're drinking 5, 6, 7 bottles of water a day, or you're drinking, you know, you have these big things, you fill it up 3 times a day, or if you have a glass of water every single time you have a meal, like if you're drinking enough water, you're going to be fine. If you're somebody who you're drinking a bottle of water a day and that's it, I don't care if you're taking creatine or not fucking taking creatine. That's not a good idea. So like you should be drinking water regardless. If you're not drinking a lot of water, A lot of water. If I could give you like a, I don't know, a calculation, I always tell people like, you know, 2 liters of water per day, somewhere around there. If you're not doing that, try to get around 2 liters of water per day. And you should be doing that whether you take creatine or not take creatine. All right. And then bleeding into the next point, the extra water weight. Remember earlier how I said you would probably be best off getting a micronized creatine monohydrate? This is why. Because if you get a micronized creatine monohydrate, it will reduce a lot of the water weight, the bloating, that kind of stuff. And remember, right along with the water weight, the bloating thing, creatine inherently is not going to like automatically bloat you because creatine is going to store water weight. Yes, it's going to store water weight though, not in your gut. It's not what creatine does. Creatine stores water in your muscle cells. So it's always Not comical, but like I always find it interesting when people tell me, "Oh, I took creatine. I got super bloated." Like creatine stores water in your muscles, not your stomach. That's not how the creatine works. It goes to your muscle cells, so it's not gonna like bloat you like a I don't know having four cheeseburgers would probably fucking bloat you, right? Like that's not it's it's a very different kind of like water weight retention, or if like you had a meal that was like you know you had French whole thing of French fries and the sodium was just like. Through the roof. Like you might be bloated because of that, because the sodium was through the roof, but creatine is not going to bloat you like that, especially if you get a micronized version. And the micronized version is just a tad bit easier to digest. And I'll kind of walk my statement back a bit. Sometimes depending on the brand of creatine you get and if it's not micronized, so on and so forth, sometimes there can be some, I don't say digestion issues, but like some just might be harder to digest than others. And so, That's why I like personally taking a creatine monohydrate. Now I want to make this very clear to you. Yes, creatine is going to store water in your muscles, which is a good thing because that's what you want in order to get all of the benefits I talked about earlier, all of the benefits of the workout performance, lifting more weight, doing more reps, having more stamina, having more endurance, you know, all those great things we talked about. That's where it comes from. So there might be some water weight stored in your muscles, which if you're somebody who, you know, you're losing weight or even if you're not losing weight, so on and so forth, but You know, you notice the— and we'll talk about, as you can see, we'll talk about if you should take it when you're losing weight. But if you're somebody who is like losing weight, for example, you see the scale spike up, well, just know it's not like you're not gaining body fat because you're taking creatine. You would be gaining weight on the scale, or the scale might not move, especially initially as you start taking it, because your body just has to get used to the new creatine and the new water levels that are in your body. So yes, you may gain some extra water weight, but water weight and fat gain are 2 different things. And the water weight is actually a good thing. It's getting stored in your muscles to help you in your workout performance. Now heading into the next question, should you take it when you're losing weight? Hopefully the question I just answered will probably help you with that. But yeah, you can take it when you're losing weight. If you're trying to lose weight, that's totally fine because a few reasons. Number one, like I said, it's not going to stop you from losing weight. Very short term, very initially, if you take some creatine, like I said, a week or two, it might take your body a little bit used to like getting used to the creatine and like the scale might, you know, be kind of funky, so on and so forth. But if you're eating in a calorie deficit, creatine does not stop you from losing body fat. So over the long haul, as long as you're in a calorie deficit, you will continue to lose body fat and the scale will continue to go down. Again, the first week or two, the scale might be a bit funny, but as long as you're truly in a calorie deficit, The scale is going to keep going down. Like, you're going to be fine. And that's the thing too. If let's say you weigh 185 right now and you start taking creatine, you know, you might weigh 185 for a couple of weeks, but then 184, 183, it'll go down. But then your 183 with creatine might be 181 without creatine, which like, number one, who fucking cares? But number two, again, it's not like you've gained a pound or two of fat. It's just extra water weight in your system, which is a good thing for the benefits. That's number one. Number 2, when you are in a calorie deficit, what's one of the things that happens when you're in a calorie deficit or what could potentially happen is you could potentially lose lean muscle mass, which would not be good. If you're taking creatine and you're following a proper strength training program, ain't no way in hell you are going to lose lean muscle mass. Third, right on top of that, your workout performance can stay high Longer because when you're in the calorie deficit, you're not getting as much calories, you're not getting as much energy. If you're taking creatine, you can keep your workout performance high or as high as it can be because creatine will help your workout performance. You can keep your workout performance higher, which will have you again, you know, be able to keep gaining strength, you know, recover better, all the good things that we've already talked about. So taking it while you're in a calorie deficit is actually very smart and The last thing here is some people might ask me, well, you know, if it's going to make me retain water weight, like will I look more bloated or more watery, so on and so forth? No. As long as you're losing body fat and getting down to a lean body fat percentage, again, it's getting stored in your muscles. That's a good thing. Like your muscles are still going to look fucking great when you lose body fat. Okay? So that's number 11. And number 12, what happens when you stop taking creatine? Remember, creatine is not like steroids. So when you stop taking creatine, nothing happens. You might lose like a pound or 2 of water weight because there won't be as much creatine saturation in water in your muscles. But beyond that, like nothing happens. You don't like lose all of your progress. You don't like go back to what you were before. Like no, all of the strength you've gained, all of the lean muscle mass you gained, it's there. Remember again, creatine is just an extra thing that helps your performance. So if you stop taking creatine, You'll lose the extra, you know, 2 to 5% of like performance enhancement, but you're not going to lose your strength gains. You're not going to lose your muscle gains. Like you're not going to lose anything you've built, everything you've built and gained, you're going to keep. It's just you, you won't have that extra number one, like creatine saturation, water in your muscles. But then number two, you won't continue to get the extra benefits of what creatine brings you because it's no longer in your system. So you won't have the extra benefits. of what creatine brings. And there's actually one last question I wanted to bring up really quickly because I get asked this a lot. I knew I was going to miss one. Number 1, is it safe for teenagers to take? And number 2, should teenagers take it? So I'm going to be honest with you here. I am not one to tell you what to do with your child. I personally started taking creatine around the age of 16. And again, with all the research that we have currently, Yes, it is safe for teenagers to take because remember it comes in food. So if they're eating steak, they're getting creatine as it is. Obviously, like I said, they're not getting as much creatine as they need to like see benefits from it, but they're getting creatine. So yes, it's safe. Do I think they need it? Like I just told you, I started taking creatine around like age 16. Do I think I needed it then? No, probably not. Because at that age, 16, 17, 18, like you're going to see progress regardless because you're so new to Freaking strength training. So I don't think teenagers inherently need it. Again, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your kid, and I'm not going to tell you that you should or shouldn't because like I know me. I'm thinking back to my 16-year-old self. I don't give a shit what anyone told me. I was going to take it. Like I had the conversation with my parents. I'm like, "It's not fucking steroids. It's fine." Although I did think it was steroids, but unfortunately it wasn't steroids. But if you were to tell me not to take it, I was going. gonna take it anyway. So I mean, and listen, like, did it make a massive difference? I don't know, but I did it. And ever since then, like, I've taken it basically since I was 16, some years here and there on and off, um, but ever since I was 16 basically. So, um, don't want to tell you what to do with your kids, so that's up to you. But yes, it's safe. Do they need it? That would be a personal decision. Again, can it help? Yeah, it can help. But like, do they need, need it? I don't think they need, need it, but that's up to you. And that actually I think is all of them. I know again I'll probably miss one, but It is what it is. If you have any more questions, feel free to drop them down below in the comments section of the video. And again, if you want to get this brand, you can feel free to head to the description. There'll be a link for this particular company. Again, you don't have to take this brand as long as you take a creatine monohydrate micronized version if you can. One last thing, pills versus powder. I get this question too. I'm thinking of questions. I'm sorry. Pills versus powder. I personally like taking powder. I think it digests and absorbs better. I'm not going to tell you pills are wrong. I just think the powder digests and absorbs into your body better. But like I said, as long as you get a creatine monohydrate micronized if possible, and you take 5 grams per day, that is the most important part. All right, so that's that. Hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, please feel free to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. I talked earlier about getting your fundamentals in place first Before you worry about creatine. If you're looking to get your fundamentals in place, if you want help with your training, if you want help with your nutrition, there will be some links here below in the description of this video where I go over the options that myself and my team have for fitness coaching. That's kind of like what I do for a living. So there'll be some things here below in the description of this video. Check them out if you want to. Other than that, thank you for watching and we'll chat soon.