There are many myths surrounding creatine. The freely available substance used to be associated with doping. However, if the dosage is correct, it is free of side effects.
Linford Christie becomes 100-meter Olympic champion in Barcelona in 1992. Maybe also thanks to creatine.
Action Images / Reuters
There are no miracles in training research, says Jürgen Giessing, only surprises. And some of these surprises are the result of coincidence. This was also the case with creatine, the active ingredient shrouded in myths that has had a remarkable career. Creatine is freely available and the substance is also produced by the body itself. Up to 120 grams are mostly stored in a person’s skeletal muscles. Creatine plays a key role in energy metabolism – and thus also during intensive muscle exertion.
That’s why, says Jürgen Giessing, the effect of creatine is sometimes significant when an athlete takes it. Giessing, who teaches and researches as a professor of sports science at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, has been studying the causes and conditions of muscle hypertrophy for more than two decades.
In 2019 he published the book “Creatine: A natural substance and its importance for muscle building, fitness and anti-aging”. He evaluated 400 studies on this. The conclusion of his research: Compared to many other over-the-counter dietary supplements, the effect of taking creatine on the performance of athletes is clearly detectable. This is where creatine differs from the ever-popular protein, which many athletes already consume in sufficient quantities in their daily diet.
Creatine was early popular among sprinters
However, no one would have thought of using creatine in sports if a track and field athlete had not been treated with creatine during treatment for his eye disease. In ophthalmology, it is not uncommon to give the substance to patients whose bodies do not produce enough of it themselves. During the treatment, the runner noticed that his performance on the tartan track was significantly better than before.
Linford Christie spoke early about taking creatine.
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The incident made competitive athletes sit up and take notice. And it led to creatine being consumed on a large scale by track and field athletes. One person who spoke openly about it early on was Linford Christie, the former British world champion and 1992 Olympic champion in the 100-meter sprint.
This is how creatine came into competitive sports. At the end of the 1990s, the then head of the Cologne doping laboratory, Wilhelm Schänzer, estimated the proportion of athletes who consumed creatine at 70 to 80 percent. At the time, there was intense discussion about whether creatine belonged on the doping list. Opponents of taking it argued that it was clearly a substance administered to improve performance.
Proponents countered that creatine is a substance produced naturally in the body and is also found in food. A person simply has to eat larger amounts of meat to consume the same amount as if they took a level teaspoon of creatine in powder form. There are around 0.5 grams in 100 grams of beef or pork. The daily requirement for an adult is one to five grams.
Creatine is unsuitable for long-distance runners
Since humans can produce the substance themselves, creatine does not need to be supplied to the body with a balanced diet. The requirement is covered under normal use. However, if there is extraordinary physical stress, an increased need arises. If creatine is added, the effect can be significant – especially in the areas of explosive strength and maximum strength. So it’s no wonder that sprinters in particular are among those who benefit from the income. But strength athletes also use the drug with remarkable success because of its muscle-building effect.
The 1990s were the heyday of creatine in athletics. Linford Christie wasn’t the only one who came out as an enthusiastic user. Mathias Rusterholz, still the Swiss record holder in the 400 meters and winner of the bronze medal at the 1994 European Championships, once said that he also owed his success to taking creatine.
Award ceremony for the 400 meters at the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki: Mathias Rusterholz (right) surprisingly wins the bronze medal.
Sven Simon / Imago
Creatine is still referred to as a miracle cure, sometimes even without quotation marks. But is it actually?
Jürgen Giessing waves away. And he doesn’t want to know anything about statements that creatine generally increases performance by 10 to 20 percent within a short period of time. Such numbers belong in the realm of fables. They were particularly popular at a time when creatine was popular but was still little researched. The effects should be viewed differently: In which sports does the use of creatine even make sense? And, most importantly, who benefits most from taking it?
Jürgen Giessing, German sports scientist.
PD
Depending on the sport, almost no effect at all or a noticeable boost can be expected. Unlike their colleagues on short distances, long-distance runners could hardly benefit from the intake. Creatine is only interesting for them because it shortens the regeneration time. If you build up too much muscle, says Giessing, long-distance runners are even at risk of negative effects because the runner has to carry around more muscle weight.
Dietary habits should also be taken into account when taking it. The name alone (Kreas means meat in Greek) suggests that the substance can be taken as part of a normal diet, as mentioned. It is only contained in trace amounts in milk or eggs and not at all in plant-based foods. Anyone who consumes large amounts of meat as an athlete can get by with just a single gram; A vegan, on the other hand, could take a much higher dose. The effects are most clear here.
Giessing is not necessarily a fan of dietary supplements: “Normal nutrition is always better than supplements. But in the case of creatine, you don’t have to consume pounds of meat.”
No book met scientific standards
When Giessing began to evaluate the studies, he was surprised that there was not a single book about creatine that met scientific standards. Anything intended for a larger audience came from bodybuilders, not scientists. And this despite very informative studies. For Giessing, creatine is still “an absolutely exciting substance” today, but it only plays a minor role in people’s perception; other supplements are hyped.
The researcher suspects it could be because creatine is not expensive. The profit margins are likely to be relatively small. Creatine monohydrate is the cheapest and most effective option. Internationally, material from Germany is particularly popular. “German creatine is the gold standard because of the strict criteria for the purity of the substance,” says Giessing.
The benefits of creatine are not limited to sports. Taking small doses is also interesting for older people whose bodies have broken down muscles. “If these people now have more creatine in their bodies again because their stores are full, it has a noticeable effect,” says Giessing. Animal and cell experiments have also shown that creatine can relieve hematomas under certain circumstances.
But: Why is it that the reputation of the substance is still anything but flawless despite so many beneficial effects? It may also have something to do with the fact that there has been a long – and still sporadic – discussion about whether creatine belongs on the doping list or not. And perhaps also because the most popular creatine ambassador at the time, Linford Christie, was later noticed in a doping test. He tested positive for nandrolone.
The legend of the Spanish professional club FC Valencia, which did not want to take the risk of administering creatine to its professionals for fear of possible side effects and instead fed it to the second team, does not initially sound particularly trustworthy. But four weeks after the experiment began, this same team was in great shape.
When taken in the correct dosage, creatine is considered to have no side effects
In addition, according to Giessing, the dosage in large quantities has not been good for the reputation of the substance. In the 1990s, dosages of 20 to 30 grams were often experimented with – far too much, but more than necessary to sometimes cause severe side effects such as diarrhea and abdominal pain. “We’re talking about an overdose of up to ten times,” says Giessing.
An athlete can safely consume between one and five grams; as an average, three grams is on the safe side. How much it should be also depends on your eating habits.
At such dosages, no break is necessary because the body continues to produce creatine, unlike at high dosages. Either way, the following applies: Anyone who stops using creatine must expect a drop in performance. Because within four weeks the level drops to the initial value.
According to Giessing, there are now over 1,000 studies on creatine and its side effects. Even over a period of five years, there was no worrying picture. “In my opinion, the reservations are largely unjustified, unless you do it wrong,” says the researcher.
But it is precisely this danger that is great: recreational athletes in particular still often act according to the motto “A lot helps a lot”. Giessing thinks it’s a strange situation. We know exactly how to dose creatine, and “yet there are still people who take 20 to 30 grams per day. The criticism is absolutely justified.”
