Why ~Everyone Should Take Creatine Forever
One sentence case: Everyone should exercise, and perpetual creatine supplementation of 5g per day yields a modest but real increase to hypertrophy, strength, and muscular endurance (a ~5 % increase in each); this is really well studied and the gains are basically free.
I wrote earlier this month about how to ingest creatine quickly and painlessly. I opened that piece with, “basically everyone should take 5 grams of creatine every day for their lives entire.” I took it for granted that everyone already knew this and was up-to-date on creatine discourse because there are a gorillion videos on fitness internet on the subject, but I’ve had a large number of people asking me to explain this point. I hope this post will be useful, but know that it’s meat-and-potatoes and will not contain novel and exciting insights.
Resistance Training and Strength in General
As long as we remain stuck in these prisons of flesh, we have strong reasons to do resistance training. This means lifting weights, doing bodyweight and isometric exercises, and/or doing plyometrics (i.e. jumping). Crucially, you need to do these exercises with the relevant amount of resistance to trigger adaptation in your muscles and tendons, and you need to do this to as many muscle groups as you can. I know some of us have physically taxing lifestyles that involve lifting children and not having enough sleep, but making your body tired and exercising are not the same thing.
Exercise science is pretty junky, so you can successfully pick at any one piece of evidence if you are motivated to do so, but the overall picture is that being strong is really important1. Strengthening your muscles is associated with a 10-17 % lower risk of all-cause mortality2. 30-60 minutes per week of weight training is associated with 14 % lower mortality, independent of aerobic activity3. Resistance training increases bone mineral density4, preventing old-age frailty (which I don’t think you can really do any other way). Strength training has a moderate-sized positive effect on mental health5. Common exercise trends for women put a lot of emphasis on weight loss and strengthening the lower body — leaving women with underdeveloped upper bodies. Though men and women are vastly different in average and maximum potential strength, men and women respond similarly to resistance training on the margin and women in fact have relatively stronger response to upper-body training6. Strength seems to be unique amongst masculine qualities in predicting both mating and reproduction outcomes7. For women, the BMI that maximizes attractiveness is much lower than the BMI that maximizes health — but lean muscle mass is not penalized in attractiveness, so women who want to bridge this gap have strong reasons to do resistance training8.
Being strong is also very funny. Finally: I don’t want to horny-post, but women who lift are also generally very attractive and not “bulky”. Culture will eventually catch up to this manifest truth.
Creatine
So it’s good for almost everyone to be stronger and to have more lean muscle mass. Creatine supplementation fits in by giving you a small but consistent increase in strength, hypertrophy, and muscular endurance91011. To put a really simple, operational number on it: you should expect appropriate creatine supplementation to yield a 5 % increase over time in strength, hypertrophy, and muscular endurance. Given that it is so cheap and easy to take, you should take it forever. 3-5 grams per day is sufficient for most people. I take 7-10 grams because I am large. Overconsuming creatine is rarely a problem, as it just breaks down into harmless waste when it can’t be used.
A small percentage of people experience indigestion when taking creatine. This seems like a sufficient reason to me to not take creatine. But the rest of us should really have no excuse.
Some Notes on Avoiding Hype
The supplement industry sustains itself by creating hype cycles. There are many studies that purport to show that various supplements produce amazing effects, but a lot of this ends up being straight up junk science, or disappears if the subjects eat a realistic and complete diet. Creatine benefits from being studied for a very long time. To a first approximation, I say that (conditional on having a good diet) the only supplements worth taking are protein powder and creatine.
It is of course fine to take bets on other supplements. There are rarely downsides, outside of losing money (and losing cognitive cycles to placebo-chasing). And it’s fine if you like guys like Andrew Huberman and Brian Johnson, and are excited to follow their recommendations. I only say that those guys have not escaped the typical health-influencer trap of attaching their names onto retarded products (e.g. see this for Huberman, and this for Johnson).
Creatine has been getting in the news regularly for studies that seem to be finding cognitive benefits. Looking at these studies overall, I think the purported effects are very small, and the results are suspect. Perhaps the effects on memory are worth taking into consideration.
Sometimes people come up to me very excited to be taking creatine, and they strongly feel its effects after a week. I just nod politely when this happens. I have personally never been able to feel a difference when I take creatine. Day-to-day, the amount of sleep I have and other somatic intangibles add so much noise that I wouldn’t be able to detect a 5 % increase in average strength. I first hit a 370lb squat on 2 hours of sleep. Some days I feel great but can’t make any progress. I only take creatine because I respect the science™.
As a rule I’m going to cite only meta-analyses, or longitudinal studies with really large n. I’ll explicitly note exceptions.
So this is ... creatine monohydrate? *purchased*
Some evidence suggests creatine worsens asthma symptoms