I Want To Use Creatine. How Much Should I Take?
Basic Information
As with taking any supplement to use in a body building process, I would suggest that you break it down into three different phases. We will call these phases: loading phase, maintenance phase and wash out phase. Understanding these three different phases is very simple. Loading phase is when we start to first ingest creatine into our bodies by dietary intake to load the supplement into the muscle mass. Creatine by far is the best possible supplement that anyone can use for this process.
Loading Phase
When starting to use creatine the loading phase is necessary for the muscle mass of our body to load up on the creatine in the muscle cells. This occurs usually during the first 5 days of taking creatine. It is advised to use a larger dose of creatine during the first 5 to 7 days to saturate the muscle cells with creatine. This gives the cells a jump start at the beginning to develop quicker results from your workout.
How to Calculate Dosage Size
To calculate dosage size we have to do some mathematics. You need to take your body weight and convert from pounds to kilograms. This can be simply done by taking your body weight and dividing it by 2.2. This will give you your weight in kilograms. With this information you should take the end result times 0.3 to give you your daily dosage of creatine.
What is the best way to ingest the creatine into my system?
When you have figured out the amount of dose you need on a daily basis it is suggested that you divide it into three or four equal parts. You can then take a third or a quarter of your daily dosage throughout the day at different times. You can coordinate your ingestion of creatine in your body with your meals or you could also consider timing it to your workout sessions. It has been shown numerous times that one of the best times to ingest one of those portions of creatine is immediately after a workout.
Creatine Maintenance
After the 5 days of creatine loading, it is suggested that you reverse back down to a creatine maintenance level. In most cases the amount needed is 2 grams per day. You should also divide this into three or four equal parts and take it again with your meals or coordinate timing with workouts.
Wash Out
It has been suggested by some that a good overall strategy is to after taking creatine for one month to stop completely and allow your body to fully wash out the creatine from it. The amount of time for a body to completely cleanse itself or reduce its creatine back to body’s normal levels is approximately one month. At that time you could start the regimen again. Starting again with the loading phase, followed by a maintenance period, and then after approximately one month allowing the body to return to normal creatine levels.
Concluding Thoughts
Is creatine bad for you, I believe not. Creatine is probably one of the most used and safest bodybuilding supplements in the community today. Just as with anything else if it is used inappropriately or beyond what it should be used as a supplement it can cause you problems. There are some studies that state that if you have used creatine over months of time and not used it in a correct manner you do run the risk of kidney damage. However, with that being said this is a very minor occurrence and it happens when people abuse what they are doing in their workout process.