Creatine for Women, A Plus!

Creatine for Women, A Plus!

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Creatine is a very helpful ergogenic aid available to athletes, it has gained popularity for it’s ability to transform ADP (adenosine di-phosphate) into ATP by donating a phosphate molecule ADP is then transformed into ATP (Norton, 2017). The reason this is such a sought after ergogenic aid is because of this process creatine enhances athletic performance, and aids in muscle strength gains (Norton, 2017). Creatine is made up of three amino acids: glycine, arginine, and methionine (Norton, 2017).

In order to explore whether or not the claim that creatine is indeed an effective ergogenic aid, research needs to be looked at in support of these claims. In one study conducted on adult athletes in 2007, in Leuven, Belgium, by the Research Center for Exercise and Health studied the ergogenic effects of creatine, and creatine monohydrate in sports as well as rehabilitation (Hespel & Derave, 2007). The study found that, “[t]he elevated muscle creatine content moderately improves contractile performance in sports with repeated high-intensity exercise bouts. More chronic ergogenic effects of creatine are to be expected when combined with several weeks of training. A more pronounced muscle hypertrophy and a faster recovery from atrophy have been demonstrated in humans involved in resistance training. The mechanism behind this anabolic effect of creatine may relate to satellite cell proliferation, myogenic transcription factors and insulin-like growth factor-1 signalling. An additional effect of creatine supplementation, mostly when combined with training, is enhanced muscle glycogen accumulation and glucose transporter (GLUT4) expression. Thus, creatine may also be beneficial in sport competition and training characterized by daily glycogen depletion, as well as provide therapeutic value in the insulin-resistant state” (Hespel & Derave, 2007). Thus, the Belgium study supports the hypothesis that creatine is indeed an effective ergogenic aid for adult athletes. However, this study is 10 years old now and the flaw of the study is that it is not up to date research.

Furthermore, in another study done on young adult athletes in 2011 the risks, benefits, and efficiency of creatine on young athletes was studied (Obrien, 2011). The results of this studies findings found that, “[c]reatine is the most popular nutritional supplement, with annual sales over $400 million. Its prevalence in high school athletic populations has been reported to be 7% to 30%” (Obrien, 2011). Thus, the emphasis in this research study was that coaches and physicians needed to be aware of the risks, benefits, and the effectiveness of creatine on young athletes (Obrien, 2011). The main flaw of the research was that they used a survey method, and the flaw with that is that it may lead to research bias. As well as the research being six years old, it may not be current enough. The research did only focus on adolescents, thus may be too narrow to show true effectiveness of creatine. However, the results show that there is widespread use of creatinine among young athletes, and this is primarily due to the financial incentives tied to performing faster, and better than other’s (Obrien, 2011).

Furthermore, in another study done on female athletes in 2016, this study researched whether creatine was an effective ergogenic aid for female athletes (Eckerson, 2016). The study found that creatine is indeed a very useful ergogenic aid to female athletes, however most female athletes have the perception that creatine will make them gain weight and therefore they don’t take creatine; this study found that creatine enhanced performance in female athletes, and did not make them gain additional weight (Eckerson, 2016). The limitations to the study on female athletes was that the group studied was that of 88 female athletes, the number should be larger to be a representative sample size. Also, the study was only done on female college athletes, this may not be representative of all athletes (Eckerson, 2016). Overall, this study shows promising results of the effectiveness of creatine on sports performance for female athletes, and needs to be researched further in order to explore the effectiveness of creatine on sports athletes on a larger sample size.

Creatine can be found in, “a natural guanidino compound which is found in meat and fish in concentrations ranging between 3 and 7 gram per kg” (Hespel & Derave, 2007). Creatine is recommended as follows, “[t]he typical dosing strategy consists of a 4- to 7-day loading phase in which 20 g is ingested in 4 equal doses (5 g) approximately every 4 hours followed by a maintenance dose of 3–5 g to maintain elevated CR [creatine] levels” (Eckerson, 2016). Based on this 20 gram per day (making it 140 grams of creatine per week) dose split into 4 equal doses of 5 grams per dose of creatine, one can look at say one piece of fish or meat containing between 3 and 7 grams of creatine per kilogram; thus, an athlete could consume 4 meals of fish and meat for each meal in order to achieve natural sourced creatine from diet. For an athlete to achieve the recommended daily dose of 20 grams of creatine per day they would have to eat a minimum of 4 kilograms of meat and fish per day. It may be doable, however may be a challenge to achieve this dose of creatine from natural sources per day, it may be comparable for some athletes, and not for others. The cost for an athlete per week would depend on whether they are eating their creatine from natural sources of meat and fish, or whether they are choosing to buy a supplement to get their daily dose of 20 grams of creatine, with a weekly total of 4.93835 ounces [0.308646875 pound] dose or 140 grams per week of creatine as per the dosing in the 2016 female athlete study; this would cost approximately $3.02 per week totalling 9.71 doses per 3 pound bottle of CellTech costing $29.78 per bottle (Coach Phil Jack, 2017). Therefore, given the effects seen in these three studies creatine supplementation would be worth it, to a competitive athlete.

Lastly, creatine may be helpful in boosting performance for all athletes, even for female athletes. Based, on the three studies the research does show evidence based research in support of creatine being effective as a performance enhancer, and because of the data in these studies it shows a positive correlation between creatine use and enhancing sport performance. In this way these three studies contribute to the hypothesis that creatine is indeed an effective ergogenic aid for athletes.

References

Coach Phil Jack Jul 10, 2017, 88FILIP88 Jul 02, 2017, Evelynromo Jun 29, 2017, Mr. Scott 49, Jun 23, 2017, & Dakota Pryor Jun 20, 2017. (2017, July 10). CELL-TECH by MuscleTech at Bodybuilding.com - Best Prices on CELL-TECH! Retrieved Sept 14, 2017, from https://www.bodybuilding.com/store/muscletech/cell-tech.html

Eckerson, J. M. (2016). Creatine as an Ergogenic Aid for Female Athletes. Strength and Conditioning Journal,38(2), 14-23. doi:10.1519/ssc.0000000000000208.

Hespel, P., & Derave, W. (n.d.). Ergogenic Effects of Creatine in Sports and Rehabilitation. Creatine and Creatine Kinase in Health and Disease Subcellular Biochemistry, 246-259. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6486-9_12

Norton, L. (2017, June 05). Creatine: Fact And Fiction! Retrieved July 03, 2017, from https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/layne13.htm

Obrien, M. J. (2011). Ergogenic Aids: Creatine Supplementation as a Popular Ergogenic Aid in Young Adults. Evidence-Based Orthopedics, 905-909. doi:10.1002/9781444345100.ch106