Why you shouldn't take Creatine.

Creatine increases the potential of tendon damage, being tear or strain. When your muscles grow and you make size/strength gains, you're tendons & ligaments grow propotioniatly to these gains, creating a balance. However when you supplement creatine into your diet, overloading your body with 100's of times the amount of creatine it would naturally produce/intake over a years time in less than 1 week, you're muscles grow and swell in disproportionate to your ligaments. This extra stress on your ligaments increases the potential of tear and damage greatly.

Picture in your mind a weight hanging from a rubber band. As the weight increases, the rubber band strength increases proportionately together. However, when taking creatine, the weight (muscle) grows in such disproportion to the rubber band (tendon), in such a short amount of time....well, damage is done...ACL tears, Rotator cuff damage, etc.

This was the discussion today in one of my nutritional science classes. It seems like a pretty legitimate claim, and my professor seems to know what hes talking about. What do you guys think?

 

Your instructor acts as if you grow 22 inch arms in a weeks time.

 

Did that actually come from a book or are you just spouting off some BS you heard in class?

EDIT: I guess I should clarify that it's BS regardless of the source.

 

Lol. No.

Your instructor is an idiot, I'm sorry. While this is true of steroid use, creatine has far from those effects.

Creatine doesnt make your muscles magically get bigger. You will hold a little more water in your muscles, and they might swell a bit, but creatine doesnt directly make your muscles bigger. Creatine supplementation is used because of its affect on performance, no simply for mass building. But if you can work harder you can put on more mass.

I think your professor thinks creatine is a steroid. Therefore, your instructor is an idiot. no offense.

 

Muscle is largely composed of water, blood and protein structures such as myosin, actin and tropomyosin. Creatine, whilst providing a supply of creatine to bind free phosphate (and subsequently shuttle then back to ADP to give energy in the form of ATP) also draws water INTO the cell (not between the cells, as in the case of water retention) to create a much more anabolic environment. You should pay attention to the fact that whilst creatine is ingested with water, excess water is urinated, so to suggest that muscles would swell to a size that would induce damage does seem a little suspect.

It is worth considering that whilst creatine does have this "cell swelling" effect, it also allows more energy/force to be put into lifts, which could subsequently aid/stimulate muscle growth (and tendon and ligament proliferation as a result) to counteract this "excess weight".

What exactly did your class teacher say? Did he provide a study of some sort?

Many injuries associated with the ACL are often the result of forcefully landing upon the joint by jumping or running, and can actually be prevented by increases in muscular size. I believe there is an Olympic Skiing competitor by the name of Luke Sauder, whose asked Charles Poliquin to devise a routine to INCREASE the size of his calves so his ACL would not be damaged (you will likely find this by searching Google or the T-Nation website). Whilst Luke made no mention of the use of creatine, it does seem that muscle growth in his case, however achieved, would prevent ACL injury. I know some may say "but creatine just makes muscles big by dragging water into the cells". Whilst this may be the case, muscles are 70% water, and that doesn't make the muscle useless does it?

Whilst your teacher may be a nutritional specialist, does he also have qualifications in nutrition science geared towards performance? If not, I'd suggest taking his advice with a pinch of salt. Especially if he is a non-training individual.

I'd suggest contacting Dr John Berardi, who is very active in nutrigenomics and precision nutrition for athletes for a better answer:

Dr. John Berardi, Ph.D.

All the best.

 

Even supposing there was some validity to the claim, it's clearly would not be a general rule in practice. For instance, there are people who notice no muscle girth increase with regular creatine usage.

 

Excellent post. I'm looking forward to more.

 

A lot of people I know tend to have this mindset. They ask me how to work out/eat, I tell them, and then they get all worried they'll turn into Arnold overnight. Pshh..

 

I love it when fat people have this mentality. Like even if it was what would actually happen, it'd be worse for them to be overly big than overly fat.

Fat Girl: This diet you recommend for me has protein, creatine, and weight training. I don't want to be muscular like a guy!

Me: Right, because you are so much more attractive looking like the Blob.

 

The 'performance increase' associated with creatine is fairly anticlimactic opposed to the information that seems to have been thrown your way. 'Muscle Size' is more along the lines of 'Muscle Bloat'(It's less 'true muscle' and more water-infused), and unless you're on a high-calorie/professional-fitness regiment almost all of the acquired 'increase' will deflate when you cycle away from the creatine.

Creatine has been proven at all levels of sport to be one of the safest methods of performance enhancement, with hundreds of studies and trials to give it unquestionable reliability.

 

This. This is my absolute favorite 'You're a Fucking Idiot' phenomenon

Creatine is used at every level of exercise, even sprinters and marathon runners use the stuff in one way or another.

The level of 'knowledge' about nutrition shared by the general society is so god-damned abysmal that it's no wonder so many people suffer from constant health issues.

Especially the 'Exercise makes you look like a MAN!' concept that women love to keep their fucking deathgrip on.

Google 'Fitness Model' and come back with 3 women from the first 5 pages that you would kick out of bed. I dare you.

Proper diet and exercise will make you look like Jamie Eason or Michelle Beaumont before it makes you look like a jacked, ripped, vascular Ronnie Colewoman.

 

Exactly.

Lifting weights without creatine has the same effect on your ligaments and tendons. He has made an extremely plausible claim in regard to working out. The only problem is creatine isn't magic. You aren't going increase in strength at a rate that much greater than without creatine. It isn't anything enough to actually make a difference in your muscles being disproportionately stronger than your tendons and ligaments. If you get sore tendons while on creatine, you more than likely would get them while off it and still on the same workout routine.

Slow and steady progress prevents things like tendonitis. So do things like de-load periods, proper nutrition, and sleep.

 

your teacher is thinkin of steroids

its really sad that he really has no idea what hes talkin about and that there were impressionable minds that heard him

 

Someone let me know when Vedic gets here.

 

It's an interesting theory, but a little dated.
I've written up a literature review of creatine safety and no "damaging effects" have been seen.

As someone already mentioned, the size changes just aren't that dramatic.

 

i'd have to argue with that. creatine is probably the most effective mass gainer in a bodybuilders aresenal short of anabolic steroids and HGH. creatine will help you find enormous gains in size and strength if taken properly. the real downside is that if you are on a creatine rich supplement program and then decide to get off of it, your muscles will drop the water retention and lose size/strength

 

This is why I'm not looking forward to going back to school this fall

 

hahaha you bastard that last part made me lol a little in class - and there are only 5 students!

 

Besides FOOD. That is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard on here. Maybe we should go on low protein diets so our muscles don't get too big so we don't get tendonitis.

 

And I have to argue with your general assessment that creatine can always be so effective. Particularly considering the effect that the user's genetics can have on the efficacy of any drug: