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Innovation in Sports Nutrition:
Ingredients/ Creatine |
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Custom Sports Drinks 
Please feel free to ask additional questions about nutrition and to request additional ingredients. |
CreatineMost athletes, at one time or another, have toyed with the idea of supplementing with creatine. Creatine use is currently wide spread among athletes at the professional and amateur levels, but is quickly gaining acceptance among younger athletes at the high school level. Yet, despite creatine's increasing popularity, a lack of accurate information about this important nutritional supplement exists for the layperson. Moreover, misinformation and rumors about creatine and its alleged side effects flood the internet and popular press. There is an obvious need for unbiased and responsible information about creatine for the general public.Creatine is an amino acid derivative that's formed in the liver, kidneys and pancreas from amino acids. Red meat is one of nature's best sources of creatine, but in order to get four grams of creatine from solid food, you would have to eat nearly five pounds of beef. One heaped teaspoon provides about as much creatine as 1 kilogram of fresh uncooked meat. Creatine supplements therefore provide you with the extra creatine that will enhance workouts and extend the period you can exercise for enhanced muscle growth. Research suggests that creatine provides energy for the muscle cells. It’s important to understand that creatine helps with a certain type of energy. It seems to effect short bursts of energy, exactly the type of bursts you experience with intense exercise such as weight lifting. Creatine refuels and regenerates ATP stores in the body; this in turn allows you to train harder through the exertion of more energy. Training harder ultimately leads to the development of additional lean muscle mass. There is other important and sometimes overlooked mechanism through which creatine supplementation works. Research suggests that supplementing with creatine can super-hydrates the muscle cells. Additional water is pulled into the muscle cell thereby increasing its volume or size. Increased cell volume means larger muscles. The mechanisms of creatine haven proven to be valuable in counteracting not only the natural muscle wasting processes associated with aging, but also some of the negative and often dramatically serious muscle wasting effects seen with such diseases such as HIV. By helping to increase overall lean muscle mass, creatine supplementation by older individuals as well as individuals living with diseases that specifically effect the muscular system may lead to significant improvements in quality of life. Creatine has also been found to be benefitial to endurance cycling running and swimming. |