Eric Roberts explains what happens when you stop taking creatine. Muscle stores stay full at first, then gradually return to normal over weeks, making your last reps slightly harder and strength feel a bit lower. Any muscle you gained stays with you, and there's no need to cycle off creatine since long-term daily use is safe.
Here's what happens when you stop taking creatine. At first, nothing will happen. Your muscles are still saturated with the creatine, so you'll still continue to get all of the benefits. But in the upcoming weeks after you stop taking it, your muscles will go back to their normal levels that they were before you started taking creatine, and you'll notice those last 1 to 2 reps of your set are probably going to become a little bit more challenging, and you may feel like you can't lift as hard or as heavy of weight. You also may lose a couple of pounds of water weight on the scale. Now, are you going to lose any progress you made while taking creatine once you stop? No. If you gain, say, 10 pounds of muscle while taking creatine, you're not going to lose all 10 of those pounds once you You might lose a bit of strength because you're not able to push as hard as you could when you were taking creatine, but other than that, you're not gonna end up outside of the gym offering your body for a tub of creatine because, you know, that would be crazy, right? And just so you know, you don't have to cycle on and off creatine. It's completely safe to keep taking every day until you die.
