In this article, and on this site I’m going to tell you a bit about creatine and especially why it’s so widely used as a supplement by sports men and women all over the world. I’ve gotta start by saying that I’m no expert in the world of medicine… or sports for that matter. But I’ve been doing lots of research, particularly online, to find out if creatine would be the right kind of supplement for me to use and if it would be beneficial to me in my sport.

I also wanted to make sure that I didn’t begin to take some thing that had multiple bad side effects by lots of people. I’m not into harming myself for the sake of my sport… I want to be better and to push myself, but I also want to be healthy and as natural as possible (it’s amazing how hard that can be in this day and age of everything being packaged and processed beyond recognition.)

Creatine Overview

So lets start off with a little explanation of what creatine is. When I first heard about creatine I just presmed that it was some kind of steroid that athletes used that would artificially either bulk up their muscles, give them an energy boost or mask the effects of muscle fatigue (if that’s even possible?!??) Well, I was quite surprised to find that it’s not natural at all.

Creatine is a naturally occurring amino acid (protein building block) that’s found in meat and fish, and this creatine is created in our own bodies by our liver, kidneys and pancreas. The blood transports it around our body and it is used by our muscles for energy.

During high-intensity, short-duration exercise, such as sprinting or weight-lifting, phosphocreatine is converted into ATP, a major source of energy within the human body.

I suppose I should have clicked that a supplement is something that ‘supplements’ what our body naturally gets from food or produces anyway (like vitamins and minerals), but I was a little slow on the uptake of this one. I seriously thought it was something like a steroid. Doh.

Creatine supplements are very popular among competive athletes and body builders. What makes creatine attractive is that it may increase lean muscle mass and enhance athletic performance for the high-intensity (but short duration) sports like I mentioned before.

There is a lot more to learn about creatine and I’ve written about them here on this site. You’ll find articles on the benefits of creatine, the side-effects and where you can buy creatine online.

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