I'm done with Creatine for now

So...a little 411 on Creatine and how I first tried it, and why I love it/hate it. Right after I graduated High School in 97, I left for Ricks Junior College to play football. My mom bought me some Creatine from GNC and I gave it my best shot. I had heard good stuff about it, but didn't really know what it was. I didn't even drink protein drinks back then.

So when I showed up to Ricks, part of the initial welcome to the football team was to run, lift, and jump, like standard combines. Well i was 175-180 pds tops, since I had just completed my senior season of soccer and summer club soccer. So I was pretty much a wimp. They had us bench press 225pds as many times as we could. The bar pretty much broke my chest. I could barely even hold it, let alone press it. So they had me bench press 185, and I did it 4 times.

So I'll try to cut to it. I bought grape juice to take with my creatine. Ate tons of tuna, eggs, and chicken. I came home after that first semester weighing 205 and pressing 225 4 times. Creatine worked wonders for me. But....

I wasn't playing soccer. I was just playing football, and not running like soccer makes you. Well I've always been a believer in Creatine and would swear by it to anyone looking to get stronger and gaining muscle.

Well at the University of Utah, while studying Exercise and Sport Science, I actually had a chance to learn how Creatine fundamentally works. Why it worked for me. I took it at various times while playing football at the U, and I got to a max weight of 221 there.

Well to break it down, Creatine adds a phosphate molecule to ADP to make more ATP. When you exert energy, the most basic form of energy in the body is ATP. When you use it, you can't fully refill it after rest. Its kind of like going a few steps down a ladder, and never quite being able to go back to the top like you could at the beginning. An example of this. When I bench press as much weight as I can 8 times, the very next set even after a rest I might only press 6 or 7 times. Then the next one maybe 4 or 5. Your body doesn't have the energy to push it. Well creatine enables you to stay near the top of your ability, like Set 1-8x, Set 2-8x, Set 3-6-7x. This makes it so you gain more strength, and tear your muscles even more by pressing more weight, which gives you that much more room to take protein to grow those muscles.

Well there are small side effects from creatine. One which is making me change my decision to stop it for now. Creatine pulls water from your body to bring to the muscle cells, like filling a water balloon. This creates a positive environment for protein synthesis, which is another way of saying growing muscle. Well with that water being pulled from my body, it is making my legs cramp playing soccer.

I hadn't taken it for a few years, cause I never wanted my weight to go over 205pds for more speed in soccer. Well I broke my foot in February and couldn't play any more soccer cause of that. Well I continued to play football as a placekicker and my body wasn't in kicking shape from not playing soccer. Well my leg just started to fade and fatigue during the games and as the season went on. I knew that Creatine would help me get back some of that energy and strength loss at the end of the games. It did and it worked like I planned. I had actually forgot about how it would effect my weight training. That wasn't my intention for taking it, but it made my strength fly out the roof and my weight increase to wear it was at the U. I got back to 220, and as of today I'm 118.

Well I love soccer and love being in shape and quick, but my Tibialis muscle on the front of my shin just cramps like crazy when I'm on Creatine. So as of today, I'm done with it. I bet my weight heads back down to 205-210 like normal, but I'm gonna work my tail off to keep my strength cause it feels nice to improve with my strength. I will let everyone know who reads this blog know how it goes.