2820: What Every Woman Needs To Know About Creatine

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1:43Adam Schafer:You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, what every woman needs to know about creatine. By the way, we have a Build Your Butt Masterclass. It's totally free. You can find it at mapsbooty.com. We break down the best exercises, how to apply them, the technique to build your glutes. Now, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Legion. Legion supplements are some of the best in the world. They have great protein powders. They have great creatine, very pure sources of creatine, and many other supplements that can help you with your fitness.

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2:54Adam Schafer:Just head over to mapsmarch.com. All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. enjoy the rest of the show creatine it's probably one of the most if not the most popular supplements around but what about for the ladies should you take it yes in short today we're going to talk about many things many things that every woman need to know about creatine we're going to break it down for you let's go still a common question that we get yes yes definitely for the ladies so Well, creatine's for, you know, people aren't familiar with what it is.

3:37Adam Schafer:You find it naturally in animal sources of protein. You don't need to consume it. Your body will make it with certain amino acids. So if you don't consume creatine from animal sources, your body will produce it. That being said, supplementing with creatine provides more of what creatine does, even if you do eat a lot of animal sources, and especially if you don't. um it and it does produce uh or is used to produce a form of energy in the body called atp so that's where most of its benefit uh comes from and it's been around for a long time as a supplement i think it was early 90s when it really hit the market and it quickly became one of the

4:18Sal Di Stefano:most popular supplements around uh random fact that i was so surprised by was we looked this up just last week remember when we're talking about creatine yeah i was under the impression that like red meat was not only the only place that you're really getting it from, but even if you got it in other places, it was so minimal in comparison. Not true. No. In fact, I think Doug found an even higher ratio than red meat was, right? I think one of the fishes had a higher ratio. Yes. So, I mean, red meat is higher. Of all the things you'll typically eat, it's the highest one. Yeah. But not by a ton. But not by a ton.

4:57Sal Di Stefano:It was like 0.3 to 0.4 grams was the difference or something like that. So if you eat a good amount of meat, there's good sources of pre-tinent. Now, what we see in the research as far as the benefits for building muscle and especially brain benefits, which is even higher. Oh, we're going to get into a lot of this. Right. You would want to supplement in addition to that. But I just thought that was really fascinating and new to me because I was always under the impression like it was only one of my favorite. What did you find, Doug? Herring.

5:29Adam Schafer:It's herring, yeah. Oh, wow, yeah. So nobody ever really eats that. So it's typically red meat would be the highest source. But it's not by a ton. It's not that much more than chicken or other common sources. Yeah, fish and stuff like that. Exactly. Okay, so here's what's interesting. You could eat a lot of meat because sometimes people are like, well, if I eat a lot of meat, will I gain any benefit from creatine? Yeah, you still will because your body actually has a pretty high capacity capacity for how much creatine it'll utilize. And if you were to eat the amount of meat, uh, to reach that upper limit, it's just way more pounds.

6:02Adam Schafer:Even someone like myself who eats a couple of pounds of meat a day still, still you're still at optimal numbers, right? So I'm still not going to get all the benefits of creatine. Well, let's talk about some of those benefits and we'll start with like the most common, uh, ones and the ones that are the most backed by literature. Although all the ones we're gonna talk about today are backed, uh, by, by studies. Uh, but number one is it makes you stronger. This is what made creatine initially popular. Uh, it was, it was, uh, it's the two reps after you think you're done. That's it's, it's remarkably effective at increasing strength in comparison with, I mean, besides diet and exercise, right?

6:39Adam Schafer:So diet and exercise always King, but in terms of supplements, uh, creatine will make you predictably stronger, most consistently compared to any other supplement that's out there. That's not hormonal like anabolic steroids. You will get stronger if you take creatine. And what this typically looks like for people, both men and women is about two pounds or an additional five pounds to every lift. So an additional two reps, excuse me, and five pounds to every lift. So if your max deadlift is 150 pounds, you could pretty much predictably know that you're going to do 155 pounds uh the following week which is for supplements is remarkable yeah for supplements

7:21Sal Di Stefano:that's pretty substantial it's also relatively quick that you feel the difference too right it's not like one of those things that's like within a week yeah it's not like one of those things you'll be taking for months and months to build it up before you start to really see a difference it's pretty quick and i'd say about a week is when i know like consistently taking it for a week the following week when you come back around to those lifts is when you tend to notice

7:41Adam Schafer:Yeah, and that's what got popular, got really popular with sports at first because you would just see this increase in power and strength. Of course, people in the strength training world started utilizing it, which takes us to the next one, which is that it helps the muscle building process. This is very backed by data. It does seem to speed up the muscle building process or hypertrophy. Now, in the recent past, there's been some speculation as to whether or not it's actual muscle fiber or if it's just that the muscles are more hydrated. Remember, muscles are like 70 % fluid.

8:16Sal Di Stefano:I thought it was more to do with the rate that it's replenishing the ATP and ADP.

8:22Adam Schafer:Yes, but what that does is it increases intracellular fluid, so the muscles are more hydrated. So recently, there were some studies that said, okay, maybe it's not muscle growth. Maybe it's just the muscles are more hydrated and we're registering it as lean body mass. Oh, okay. But there's lots of data showing that it actually, and I'll say this, even if it doesn't directly build muscle, the increase in strength, well, progressive overload is how you build muscle.

8:50Sal Di Stefano:Well, that's right. So that's back to my point with the energy thing. I mean, even if the other part isn't true, just, so let me, I haven't said this on the podcast in a long time. I think I've shared this with you a long time ago, how I used to describe this to be way back in the days, like my understanding to like simplify it. So the average person could understand. It's like, I would give this analogy of, you know, every time, and I do this while I'm resting with a client, it's like while we're sitting down resting, we'd be resting between like a bench press or something. I'd be like right now, while you're resting, your body is replenishing like these energy molecules, ADP and ATP.

9:22Sal Di Stefano:Right. And let's just say for argument's sake, your body can make a hundred of them. Right. And while we're resting during this rest period for the next, you know, 90 seconds, your body replenishes 97 of those 100 that we used, some of what we just used on the set. And so when we take creatine, you replenish those at a faster or a higher rate. So instead of, let's say, and then we go to our second set and we work all the way down to only 50 molecules left, you, if we were on creatine, or if you weren't on creatine, we rest for 90 seconds, you only replenish back up to say 70 or 75. When you're on creatine, you replenish back to 85, 90.

9:58Sal Di Stefano:So you have more energy to do more every set, and that will naturally progressively overload the body because you're stronger and you can lift more.

10:07Adam Schafer:Yeah, and that's a pretty decent illustration. Really what it looks like is you have so much ATP available. So ATP is this type of energy. It actually is a cellular energy. So I think, I believe, every cell in the body utilizes ATP. So it's like a primary source of energy. but when it comes to exercise, it burns up very quickly. So you use ATP in explosive movements or for strength. Once it burns out, then your body starts to tap into glycogen. So this is why doing, you know, long distance running, you use up the ATP very quickly and then you're running on glycogen. This is why strength training, you do sets because you train the explosive energy and not the glycogen.

10:49And what happens is through focusing on ATP,

10:53Adam Schafer:this is how the muscle building, part of how the muscle building process works because your muscles get bigger to utilize more more utp um so it so through that process i would say it builds muscle and you know when i bring up studies uh the vast majority of them show it does help with the muscle building process but even if it didn't directly help the muscle building process uh it's uh makes you stronger and we do know that when you when you progressively overload the body this is the most consistent way to build muscle. So if you can suddenly lift five more pounds, it's higher stress on the muscle fibers, which will send a louder signal.

11:30Easy to see how that'll help you in the muscle building part of it.

11:33Adam Schafer:Totally, totally. It's also extremely safe. Creatine is easily the most studied ergogenic aid that exists. There's like thousands of studies on creatine. Double-blind, placebo-controlled. There's long studies. There's studies with high doses. it's extreme it's it's not just safe uh and we're not we don't necessarily have to go here but it's not just safe but it probably helps with longevity yeah i'm actually curious because i know a long time ago we were bashing the whole loading sequence you know in the beginning because that was like we're like oh they're just trying to get you through their product and like has that changed at all in terms of their recommendation because they do recommend high doses for um you know brain function now yeah cognition but uh and two to to be able to really get it in your system i mean is that really a factor so you build up creatine stores uh or atp and it takes uh let's say it takes 10 days to to maximize or top those out taking more in the beginning will probably make it happen faster so instead of taking 10 days it might take something like six days nonetheless if you're talking about the muscle effects loading isn't necessary just takes a little longer to get the maximal effect so back in the day they would tell you to take 20 grams a day yeah for the first seven days and then five grams afterwards you don't have to do that you'll get the you'll just get the max benefits maybe a few days sooner now to what you said the cool part

12:59Sal Di Stefano:though is that if you did do that doesn't hurt because then you get the brain benefits the brain

13:03Adam Schafer:benefits which we'll get to um probably happen with higher doses because the the in order to get past what the muscles need and everything else you need a higher before that i used to think thousand wastes yes you know until these studies yeah me too yes yes yes what do you guys remember

13:17Sal Di Stefano:what was some of the like fear mongering and stuff around uh the creatine one kidneys

13:24Adam Schafer:so the places that they've done most studies for safety are kidney health organ health uh liver health um there were there were fears that it would increase uh you know muscle tears or injuries that's also been dispelled oh yeah very safe for the kidneys unless you have uh impaired kidney function and you're working with a nephrologist and they're like, Hey, don't, you know, do the following, then you're totally, you're totally fine. By the way, if you have impaired kidney function, they'll also tell you to restrict things like protein and stuff like that. So it's very, very safe on the body. Like I said, like every study done on safety with creatine has shown again, not that it's just safe, uh, that there's, there's longevity benefits.

14:05Adam Schafer:So now they're, now they're looking at data showing like, Oh, there's, and again, this isn't one of the points, but it may be anti-cancer and maybe anti-disease. It seems to be good for your organs because all your organs run or utilize ATP as well. So it's not just safe. It's actually good for you. It's actually one of the things that good for you. It's also great for mood, which is really interesting. Now, they did a study, and I pulled it up here. Now, is that just because you have more energy? Brain energy. Oh, brain energy. That's right. That's right. So they did a study on, there was a meta-analysis that was assessing, or sorry, randomized controlled trial of paramenopausal women and menopausal women.

14:49Adam Schafer:Eight weeks of creatine supplementation reduced the severity of mood swings compared to placebo. There's also anti-anxiety and anti-depression effects that have been shown now in studies. So it's a mood-lifting supplement as well. So that's really an energy thing with the brain, connected. Yes, yes, totally. So it'll lift your mood in many cases from taking creatine, which is pretty wild. Again, all the studies that they do on creatine continue to show more and more benefits for almost everything that they study. Well, yeah, I guess the next one about brain fog, like that has to like tie into that.

15:26And then to like your point of like recovering from a bad night of sleep and recommending that.

15:32Adam Schafer:That's the most interesting one. They did studies on sleep-deprived individuals where they would purposely sleep-deprive them, and then they'd do a battery of tests to look at their cognitive function. And you can see the difference, right? Like we did these tests when you weren't sleep-deprived, and these ones when you're sleep-deprived, and we can see a difference. A single dose of 20 grams of creatine essentially erased the cognitive impairment that people got from school. Now, this doesn't mean, I want to be clear, this is not a replacement for sleep. So it's not like, oh, cool, I'm going to get back sleeping.

16:01Adam Schafer:No, this is a band-aid. But if you're like –

16:04Sal Di Stefano:Hey, if you just flew somewhere, 10-hour flight or something like that, you feel brain fog the next day and stuff like that, what a cool time to mega-dose creatine.

16:11Adam Schafer:Not just that. Like if you're listening right now and you're like going through a season where, I don't know, you got little kids and you're getting bad sleep and it's just not optimal. Like creatine can help with your brain function quite a bit. Again, it's that energy molecule that it helps produce or helps promote. and that just helps with cognitive function. But especially, so there's two people where we see cognitive improvements, dramatic, I would say in the data, significant improvements in brain function. One is sleep deprived individuals and the other one which has been well-established are vegans.

16:50Adam Schafer:You actually see an IQ increase with vegans. Does that make sense?

16:55Sal Di Stefano:Because if all - They take the least amount. Yeah, well, they don't eat meat. So if meat has at least a decent amount, even though it doesn't have optimal, it has a decent amount of creatine, and you get none.

17:07Adam Schafer:By the way, creatine is a vegan supplement. So if you're a vegan and you're like, oh, I want to take creatine, but it's derived from animal. It's not. It's actually vegan the way they create it. How does that poppy now? Neat acid. There's a process. This is what happened in the early 90s. They figured out how to make creatine in an expensive way. Before that, scientists had been able to make creatine, but it was so expensive. But doesn't it start from a meat source? That's why it was so expensive back in the days? Well, it was actually, it was already cheap by the time they made it in the 90s, but because they cornered the market.

17:34Sal Di Stefano:Oh, it was considered cheap when we bought it? Oh, yeah. I remember when it was so, it was way more expensive.

17:39Adam Schafer:Well, it was like$50 for, this was back in like 92, 93 for like 30 servings. Yeah, it was like pure chalk. Now 50 bucks will get you 100 servings or more. But compared to when they first were able to synthesize creatine, it would have cost thousands of dollars. It was so expensive to make it. Oh, I didn't know that. And they figured out how to produce it and make it.