All About Creatine Supplements and Whether They’re a Good Idea for Cyclists
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From aero socks to pricey carbon bottle cages, cyclists almost always look to gain an edge in the sport. This is why more pedal pushers are scooping creatine into their lives.
Listen to any of today’s popular sport- or health-focused podcasts and you’ll often hear someone waxing poetic about this white powder. It leaves us believing that creatine is a means of becoming a better athlete.
Creatine has been widely studied for its potential use as a performance enhancer. As such, it’s a popular supplement choice among professional athletes and weekend warriors, yet it’s surrounded by a lot of confusion and misinformation. Does it work for endurance athletes? Will it make you get jacked? It is safe to use every day?
Here’s everything you need to know about the benefits of creatine supplements (and the downsides) to help you figure out if it’s the right supplement for you and one that will push you to the front of the pack.
Creatine, Defined
Our bodies make the substance known as creatine from the three amino acids: L-arginine, glycine, and L-methionine. It’s primarily produced in the liver and to a lesser extent in your pancreas and kidneys. On the whole, most humans will endogenously make about 1 gram of creatine per day.
On top of this, you can also get creatine from your diet when you consume animal-based foods like meat, poultry, or seafood. (Herring seems to be the creatine heavyweight!) Plant-based foods like grains and beans are largely devoid of creatine. Of note, most creatine supplements are surprisingly vegan because they are typically made using synthetic ingredients.
Once you produce it or eat it at dinner, creatine is stored primarily in skeletal muscles, with small amounts stashed away in organs including the liver, kidneys, and brain.
How Creatine Works in the Body
In our bodies, creatine is primarily stored as phosphocreatine (PCr) in skeletal muscles. When someone does brief high-intensity exercise (less than 10 seconds) or explosive types of exercise like weight lifting or sprinting where energy demand is immediate, phosphocreatine serves as a source of energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), for fast, high-intensity muscle force generation.
During this muscular energy production, your muscles remove phosphate from ATP to form adenosine diphosphate (ADP). ADP offers no energy, so your body uses phosphocreatine to supply a phosphate molecule to rapidly regenerate ATP from ADP to once again be used as a source of power for a high-intensity effort. That means if you increase the supply of creatine via supplementation, theoretically you could have more phosphocreatine available to convert ADP to ATP and thus have more energy to work out hard—resulting in the ability to improve performance of repeated high-intensity efforts.
Research puts this into practice. For example, one meta-analysis of nine studies examining creatine supplementation in soccer players shows that taking creatine increases their anaerobic power output, which is helpful when they have to burst out of the blocks to beat a competitor to the ball.
Creatine is also believed to help buffer the buildup of acid in muscle cells because the breakdown of phosphocreatine uses up a hydrogen atom. This can certainly improve exercise tolerance during all-out efforts.
How Creatine Affects Ride Performance
In 2018, The International Olympic Committee published a consensus statement where creatine—along with caffeine, baking soda, and nitrate—was identified as one of the few supplements whose performance-enhancing effects are backed by a reasonable body of evidence.
For the most part, creatine has proven most helpful for very intense forms of anaerobic exercise. One research review in the journal Nutrients determined that there is enough evidence to suggest that creatine use can help increase muscle mass in people who are resistance training. That’s because if creatine can help you generate enough energy to squeeze out a few more reps during weight training sessions this could translate into increased strength and muscle size gains. But just taking creatine will do nothing for muscle strength and size without simultaneous training at a vigorous effort.
It’s worth noting that some creatine research is focusing on its potential benefits (in combination with resistance training) for helping older adults slow down the muscle loss that accompanies aging for improved quality of life.
As for outside the weight room, a newly released research review published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition says it’s time for endurance athletes to consider making room for creatine in their supplement routine. The paper’s authors argue that it’s not uncommon for endurance athletes, including cyclists, to experience some “key race-defining moments” where a little extra creatine at their disposal could make a difference for intense efforts such as surges, hill climbs, and finishing sprints. Think about trying to haul yourself up the short and punchy incline on the trail or going full gas to the finish line. A handful of studies have tested this idea.
An investigation in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition determined that creatine supplementation (along with electrolytes) improved anaerobic sprint cycling performance (15-second max-effort sprints followed by two-minute recovery periods) in recreational male athletes. Meanwhile, a 2018 Australian study put cyclists through 120K time trials that were peppered by a series of 1K and 4K sprints. While creatine didn’t improve their overall time, it did manage to boost their power in the final sprints efforts.
What’s more: Taking creatine along with carbohydrates seems to enhance glycogen storage in the muscles, which is the primary energy source for high-intensity aerobic exercise and another way that the supplement could give cyclists a boost. A creatine-induced cell volume increase could allow greater capacity for glycogen to be stored in muscle cells.
There is also a little bit of evidence from another study to suggest that creatine use before a big endurance workout, in this case a half-Ironman, can reduce the amount of exercise-induced muscle damage via a subdued inflammatory response. The result could allow for a quicker recovery, though we need more research on this benefit of creatine supplements.
With all this said, we also need more research conducted on endurance athletes in real-world settings before we can conclude that creatine is helpful in improving certain performance metrics and in exactly what scenarios cyclists would find the most benefit.
Other Benefits of Creatine
Although research has mostly focused on its use in exercise and sports performance, creatine may have additional health benefits. Mainly, creatine could be good for your brain, according to some research.
Although research is still emerging and we need much more of it before drawing strong conclusions, a few small studies show that creatine supplementation may be useful for both memory (particularly in older individuals) and brain injuries, including concussions. Using creatine as a supplement is thought to increase the concentration of creatine in your brain. This may allow the brain to have access to a higher supply of energy it needs to function better.
Also, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which involves more than 22,000 people, researchers were able to examine a possible relationship between creatine status and depression rates in an adult cohort. The data showed that people with lower reported intakes of creatine were more likely to suffer from depression. This relationship was seen more often in women than men. But there is a dearth of data to show that taking creatine can noticeably boost mood in people who suffer from depression.
As for the potential health benefits for bone strength, heart disease, inflammation and more, there just is not anything close to slam-dunk research to support creatine use for these purposes.
Side Effects of Creatine Supplements
Creatine use may lead to certain side effects. However, these are relatively minor. And decades of research have demonstrated that creatine monohydrate is safe to use for most people. The International Society of Sports Nutrition says intake levels of up to 30 grams a day for up to five years possess little safety risk for most athletes. It’s advisable to avoid taking more than this amount as creatine’s safety above this level is less known.
According to one review, weight gain is the most commonly reported side effect of using creatine, which is understandably of concern to riders who are thinking about their power- to-weight ratios. On top of any extra muscle creatine has helped you pack on, if you’re also lifting hard, extra poundage is the result of intramuscular water retention. But there is little evidence to suggest this minor water weight is detrimental to performance. Interestingly, the extra water retention may help performance outcomes in the heat by improving thermoregulation when things get steamy.
Some people will experience bloating and nausea when using creatine, which occurs more often when higher amounts of the substance are taken at once or when the body is getting used to it. These symptoms should subside fairly quickly.
Although generally considered safe, creatine may not be right for everyone. There isn’t enough scientific evidence to prove that’s safe to use for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. It’s also likely not a wise supplement for anyone with kidney disease.
There is no evidence that if you supplement with creatine long term it will shut down your own production of it, a common concern with using the product.
The Bottom Line on Creatine Supplements
You should know that it would be very difficult to consume enough creatine from foods alone to give you the amount shown in research papers to have an ergogenic effect. Even among meat-eaters, creatine stores in our muscles are typically only about 60 to 80 percent full. Creatine supplementation may boost stores by 20 percent even in omnivores.
Regarding the primary benefits of creatine—topped-up creatine stores to fuel intense efforts like a surge to the front of the peloton—it’s certainly intriguing. Whether creatine is worth pursuing likely depends on the nature of your athletic pursuits.
Creatine supplementation will only help you to become a fitter athlete if you pair it with certain forms of exercise, namely very high-intensity short bursts of activity including sprint intervals. So if your training program or races includes some explosive exercise it’s a worthy supplement to consider and perhaps will give you more than just marginal gains. However, if you predominantly perform only moderately paced endurance exercise like long zone 2 rides and end up grunting very little at the gym, you could give creatine a pass without being at a disadvantage.
Keep in mind, though, that creatine may offer other benefits—like better glycogen storage and reduced muscle damage, soreness, and inflammation—for those who don’t do high-intensity efforts.
As with all nutrition and supplementation, know there’s plenty of individual variation when it comes to the results achieved from creatine usage. There’s a modicum of evidence that women have about 10 percent higher baseline intramuscular creatine levels, and thus get less ergogenic benefit from taking the stuff. Because creatine is primarily found in animal-based foods, there is interest in more research to determine if vegan or vegetarian athletes may benefit the most from taking the supplement. To date, research points to a possible benefit of supplementation when intramuscular stores are typically low.
Also, it’s important to keep in mind that the benefits of supplements like creatine will be marginal compared to what you experience by nailing your nutrition, training, and sleep habits. In the end, there is little to suggest that creatine alone makes you a podium finisher, it just may be one aid in getting you there.
Creatine Dosage and The Best Type to Take
You can quickly max out your creatine levels in about a week by taking 20 grams per day, split into 5 grams, four times a day for about five to seven days. After that, switch to a “maintenance load phase” of 3 to 5 grams per day. You can also skip the loading phase outright and just stick to the 3 to 5 gram dose, in which case it will take about four weeks to reach peak saturation in your muscles.
Think of your muscles as a sponge and creatine like water; you can saturate the sponge by running water from the tap quickly or slowly but over time, the end result is still the same. The loading phase just gets you to the same place a bit quicker. The slower approach may be less likely to cause digestive side-effects, but requires some forethought if you are using creatine to give you a boost for a specific event or race.
Once your creatine levels are increased via supplementation, if you stop its use it may take about a month to drift back down to your baseline levels. That means, in theory, you can cycle on and off creatine depending on your training or racing goals. A practice that could use some more research to show is effective.
These days, you can use creatine supplements in various forms, including capsules, powders, chewables, gummies, and beverages. Powders are the most popular option because they are the most well-studied, most widely available, and it’s easier to control dosage. There are plenty of creatine variants on the market, yet none to date have been shown to outperform the least expensive and most basic version, creatine monohydrate.
Creatine monohydrate is a tasteless powder that can be easily mixed into liquids including water, juice, and smoothies. (The rise in popularity of creatine has caused a spike in creatine prices so it’s no longer the bargain supplement it used to be.)
You want to watch out for “pre-workout” supplement mixes that advertise that they contain creatine. A number of these supplements may not contain the minimum amount of creatine, 3 to 5 grams, proven to be effective. And, remember, creatine is only useful if taken regularly. So if you just use a pre-workout powder occasionally before a big workout then the creatine it contains is likely of little use to your performance.
Ideally, you want to aim to take creatine close to your workout (right before or after). But, generally, you can just take it at a time that works best for you. As long as you take it regularly you stand a better chance of reaping the rewards.
Also, choose a supplement tested by a trusted third party, such as U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) or NSF.org. This way you have more confidence you are getting a quality product. Remember, supplements like creatine have less oversight than foods so it’s important to seek out options from reliable brands. Thorne Creatine Monohydrate and Gnarly Sports Nutrition Creatine are two good options that pass the test by third-party organizations.
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