Jacko Gives Us the Lowdown on Creatine!

Today Jacko is going to hit us up with some facts about Creatine, what it is and how it can benefit your performance and result when training. Ever wondered if Creatine might be right for your goals? How much to take? when to take? Listen on and find out!

Creatine is a popular, well researched amino acid that has been proven to assist muscle cells in producing more energy, reducing fatigue as well as supporting many other areas of exercise. It is arguably one of the most versatile and widely used supplements within the fitness industry currently. With benefits including improved athletic performance, increased muscle growth, along with boosting your strength and power, it's easy to see why!

See below for the finer details on Creatine as mentioned by Jacko in his video.

Creatine.

So what is creatine?

Creatine is a substance that is found naturally in muscle cells. It helps your muscles produce energy during heavy lifting or high-intensity exercise.

Taking creatine as a supplement is very popular among athletes and bodybuilders in order to gain muscle, enhance strength and improve exercise performance.

Chemically speaking, it shares many similarities with amino acids. Your body can produce it from the amino acids glycine and arginine.

Several factors affect your body's creatine stores, including meat intake, exercise, amount of muscle mass and levels of hormones like testosterone and IGF-1.

About 95% of your body's creatine is stored in muscles in the form of phosphocreatine. The other 5% is found in your brain, kidneys, and liver.

When you supplement, you increase your stores of phosphocreatine. This is a form of stored energy in the cells, as it helps your body produce more of a high-energy molecule called ATP.

ATP is often called the body's energy currency. When you have more ATP, your body can perform better during exercise.

Creatine also alters several cellular processes that lead to increased muscle mass, strength, and recovery.

Benefits
1. It helps muscle cells produce more energy.

Creatine supplements increase your muscles' phosphocreatine stores.

Phosphocreatine helps with the formation of new ATP, the key molecule your cells use for Energy and all basic functions of life.

During exercise, ATP is broken down to produce energy.

The rate of ATP resynthesis limits your ability to continually perform at maximum intensity — you use ATP faster than you reproduce it.

Creatine supplements increase your phosphocreatine stores, allowing you to produce more ATP energy to fuel your muscles during high-intensity exercise.

This is the primary mechanism behind creatine's performance-enhancing effects.

SUMMARY ​Supplementing with creatine provides additional ATP energy, which improves high-intensity exercise performance.

2. It improves hi-intensity exercise and performance.

Creatine's direct role in ATP production means it can drastically improve high-intensity exercise performance.

Creatine improves numerous factors, including.

• ●  Strength

• ●  Ballistic power

• ●  Sprint ability

• ●  Muscle endurance

• ●  Resistance to fatigue

• ●  Muscle mass

• ●  Recovery

• ●  Brain performance

  Unlike supplements that only impact advanced athletes, creatine benefits you regardless of your fitness level.

  One review found that it improves high-intensity exercise performance by up to 15%.

  SUMMARY ​Creatine is the world's most effective supplement for high-intensity sports. It offers benefits regardless of your current fitness level.

3. Speeds up muscle growth.

Creatine is the world's most effective supplement for adding muscle mass.

Taking it for as few as 5–7 days has been shown to significantly increase lean body weight and muscle size.

This initial rise is caused by increased water content in your muscles.

Over the long term, it also aids in muscle fiber growth by signaling key biological pathways and boosting gym performance.

In one study of a six-week training regimen, participants who used creatine added 4.4 pounds (2 kg) more muscle mass, on average, than the control group.

Similarly, a comprehensive review demonstrated a clear increase in muscle mass for those taking creatine, compared to those performing the same training regimen without creatine.

This review also compared the world's most popular sports supplements and concluded that creatine is the best one available. Its advantages include being less expensive and far safer than most other sports supplements.

SUMMARY ​Creatine can increase both short- and long-term muscle mass. It is the most effective muscle-building supplement available.

4. May help with Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease is characterized by a reduction of the key neurotransmitter dopamine in your brain.

The large reduction in dopamine levels causes brain cell death and several serious symptoms, including tremors, loss of muscle function and speech impairments.

Creatine has been linked to beneficial effects on Parkinson's in mice, preventing 90% of the drop in dopamine levels.

In an attempt to treat the loss of muscle function and strength, people with Parkinson's often perform weight training.

In individuals with Parkinson's disease, combining creatine with weight training improved strength and daily function to a greater extent than training alone.

However, a recent analysis of five controlled studies in people with Parkinson’s noted that taking 4–10 grams of creatine per day doesn’t significantly improve daily activities.

SUMMARY ​Creatine may reduce some symptoms of Parkinson's disease by improving muscle strength and function. However, certain studies observe no effects.

5. May help with neurological diseases.

A key factor in several neurological diseases is a reduction of phosphocreatine in your brain. Since creatine can increase these levels, it may help reduce or slow disease progression.

In mice with Huntington's disease, creatine restored the brain's phosphocreatine stores to 72% of pre-disease levels, compared to only 26% for control mice.

This restoration of phosphocreatine helped maintain daily function and reduced cell death by around 25%. Research in animals suggests that taking creatine supplements may treat other diseases too, including.

• ●  Alzheimer's disease

• ●  Ischemic stroke

• ●  Epilepsy

• ●  Brain or spinal cord injuries

  Creatine has also shown benefits against ALS, a disease that affects the motor neurons essential for movement. It improved motor function, reduced muscle loss and extended survival rate by 17%.

  Although more studies are needed in humans, many researchers believe that creatine supplements are a bulwark against neurological diseases when used alongside conventional medicines.

  SUMMARY ​Animal studies suggest that creatine can help with symptoms, disease progression and life expectancy in neurological diseases.

  6. May help with the lowering of blood sugar and fight diabetes.

  Research suggests that creatine supplements may lower blood sugar levels by increasing the function of GLUT4, a transporter molecule that brings blood sugar into your muscles.

  A 12-week study examined how creatine affects blood sugar levels after a high-carb meal. People who combined creatine and exercise were better at controlling blood sugar levels than those who only exercised.

  Short-term blood sugar response to a meal is an important marker of diabetes risk. The faster your body clears sugar from the blood, the better

While these benefits are promising, more human research is needed on creatine’s long-term effects on blood sugar control and diabetes.

SUMMARY ​Some evidence suggests that creatine can help lower blood sugar levels after meals, but there is little data on its long-term effects.

8. Can improve brain function.

Creatine plays an important role in brain health and function.

Research demonstrates that your brain requires a significant amount of ATP when performing difficult tasks.

Supplements can increase phosphocreatine stores in your brain to help it produce more ATP. Creatine may also aid brain function by increasing dopamine levels and mitochondria function.

As meat is the best dietary source of creatine, vegetarians often have low levels. One study on creatine supplements in vegetarians found a 20–50% improvement in some memory and intelligence test scores

For older individuals, two weeks of supplementing with creatine significantly improved memory and recall ability.

In older adults, creatine may boost brain function, protect against neurological diseases and reduce age-related loss of muscle and strength.

Despite such positive findings, more research is needed in young, healthy individuals who eat meat or fish on a regular basis.

SUMMARY ​Supplementing with creatine can provide your brain with additional energy, thereby improving memory and intelligence in people with low levels of creatine.

9. Can help with a reduction in fatigue and tiredness.

Creatine supplements may also reduce fatigue and tiredness.

In a six-month study in people with traumatic brain injury, those who supplemented with creatine had a 50% reduction in dizziness, compared to those who did not.

Furthermore, only 10% of patients in the supplement group experienced fatigue, compared to 80% in the control group.

Another study determined that creatine led to reduced fatigue and increased energy levels during sleep deprivation.

Creatine can also reduce fatigue in athletes taking a cycling test and has been used to decrease fatigue when exercising in high heat

SUMMARY ​Creatine can reduce symptoms of fatigue and tiredness by providing your brain with additional energy and increasing dopamine levels.

10. safe and easy to use.

Along with creatine’s diverse benefits, it is also one of the cheapest and safest supplements available.

It's been researched for more than 200 years, and numerous studies support its safety for long-term use. Clinical trials lasting up to five years report no adverse effects in healthy individuals.

What's more, supplementing is very easy — simply take 3–5 grams of creatine monohydrate powder per day.

SUMMARY ​Creatine is one of the safest available supplements and has been studied scientifically for over two centuries.

The bottom line.

At the end of the day, creatine is an effective supplement with powerful benefits for both athletic performance and health.

It may boost brain function to fight certain neurological diseases, improve exercise performance and accelerate muscle growth.

Try adding this natural substance to your supplement regimen to see if it works for you.