How to Take Creatine to Increase Muscle Mass

Taking creatine provides the body with a large number of beneficial properties for health. The most important are the following:

• Regenerating properties: creatine accelerates muscle recovery after great efforts and long workouts.
• Energizing properties: Being a carrier of energy, creatine makes the muscles work with more intensity during training and, in general, increases the physical capacities of the athlete in question.
• Although creatine is essential to increase muscles, since 90% of this supplement is concentrated in muscle mass, reports beneficial properties for the brain, as this product improves the cognitive response in elderly people.
• Osmotic properties: thanks to its composition, creatine attracts water to muscle cells, which leads to an almost instantaneous enlargement of the body’s muscles.

Creatine can be taken in a number of ways. To introduce it into your diet in the best possible way and without excessively altering your eating habits, at oneHOWTO we give you the following tips:

• One of the options with which creatine is best absorbed by the body is through fruit juices, since accelerate the transport of their active ingredient to the muscles. You can opt for grape juice or apple juice and add this nutritional supplement.
• It is always important to take it with plenty of fluids, giving preference to water to maintain proper hydration.
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine consumption, as they decrease the effect of creatine on muscle mass.
• There are a large number of supplements that include creatine within their composition, but when mixed with different components it is difficult to determine its effect on the body. Therefore, in a HOW TO we recommend that you take it separately to have a greater control of the evolution, in addition to being cheaper compared to other products.

How to take creatine and protein

Taking creatine and protein provides benefits for the body, since it helps to achieve the necessary nutritional values ​​on a daily basis through supplementation. Putting them together in the same shake is the easiest way to consume them, however, each one has a specific moment in which it reports a greater positive impact on the muscles.

You can take creatine both before and after workouts, although it is better absorbed after you finish them. In the case of protein, muscle mass needs it after exercise, so it is essential consume it after sports practice.

When making the shake that contains creatine and protein, bet on creatine monohydrate, as it contains a large number of benefits: it increases muscle hydration and, thereby, promotes muscle growth; increases physical performance between 5 and 15% and helps balance the amount of creatine found inside the body.

What is the best time to take creatine

The daily amount that you should consume of creatine is 3 grams to get the muscles to increase progressively. As with other supplements, you can take it at any time of the day, since it has an effect that accumulates in the body, but there are specific contexts in which it will bring you greater benefit:

• In strength and speed training, consume creatine half an hour before exercise.
• With workouts that last less than an hour and are of great intensity, take it during exercise.
• In long-duration and aerobic workouts, it is preferable to ingest it at the end of the exercise.

In this other article about How to take creatine: tips and recommendations, we offer you a long list of tips that you can take into account before taking this supplement.

Having clarified how to take creatine to increase muscle massIt is important to determine the time intervals in which you should consume it. They are divided into three categories:

• 3 months: the supplementation goes from 2 to 5 grams daily for three months, then making a rest break of one month.
• Overload: in the first five days of the process, consume 0.3 grams for every kilo of your weight. Divide the shots into 3 or 4 a day. After this phase, decrease the dose by a maximum of 5 grams per day for 3 months.
• CyclesConsume 5 grams of creatine for six weeks. Afterwards, take a rest break for 3 weeks.

Before opting for any of these methods to take creatine, consult your doctor about the appropriateness of each plan.

Despite the great benefits of its consumption, creatine also produces side effects if taken improperly. These are the most prominent:

• Weight gainAlthough it is obvious that creatine will make you gain weight by enlarging your muscles, there are many people who exceed the recommended intake doses and experience an unwanted weight gain caused by fluid retention.
• Diarrhea or stomach achesAlthough it is rare, if you take more creatine than recommended for you, you may suffer from some of these pains.
• Kidney dysfunction: in very extreme cases, a bad consumption of this product can cause kidney problems.

In addition, it should be noted that the intake of creatine is not recommended for pregnant or lactating women.

If you want more information they are What are the side effects of creatine, we suggest you visit this other article of UNCOMO.

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