What Every Woman Needs To Know About Creatine | Mind Pump 2820

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 gonna talk about many things, many things that every woman need to know about creatine. We're gonna break it down for you. Let's go. Still a common question that we get. Yes, yes. Definitely for the ladies. So creatine's for, you know, people aren't familiar with what it is. 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. And it does produce, or is used to produce a form of energy in the body called ATP. So that's where most of its benefit comes from. And it's been around for a long time as a supplement. I think it was the early 90s when it really hit the market, and it quickly became one of the most popular supplements around. Random fact that I was so surprised by was we looked this up just last week. Remember when we talked 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, 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. It was like 0.3 to 0.4 grams was like the difference or something like that. So, you know, if you eat a good amount of meat, there's good sources of creatine. Now, what we see in the research as far as like the benefits for building muscle and especially brain benefits, which is even higher. Oh, we're gonna get into a lot of this. Right, like 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 the only one. What'd you find, Doug? Herring. Oh, yeah. 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, she's still 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 for how much creatine it'll utilize. And if you were to eat the amount of meat to reach that upper limit. Pounds. It's just way more. Pounds. Even someone like myself who eats a couple pounds of meat a day. Still. You're still at optimal numbers. Right, so I'm still not gonna get all the benefits of creatine. Well, let's talk about some of those benefits. And we'll start with like the most common ones and the ones that are the most backed by literature. Although all the ones we're gonna talk about today are backed by studies. But number one is it makes you stronger. This is what made creatine initially popular. It's the two reps after you think you're done. It's remarkably effective at increasing strength in comparison with, I mean, besides diet and exercise, right? So diet and exercise always king. But in terms of supplements, 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 gonna do 155 pounds the following week, which is for supplements is remarkable. Yeah, for supplements, 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- Oh, within a week. Yeah, it's not like one of those things you're gonna 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 it. Yeah, and that's what got it 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. I thought it was more to do with the rate that it's replenishing the ATP and ADP. Yes, but what that does is it increases intracellular fluid so the muscles are more hydrated. So there was like recently there was 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. 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. 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 simplify it so the average person could understand. It's like, I would give this analogy of, 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 a bench press or something. I'd be like, right now while you're resting, your body is replenishing these energy molecules, ADP and ATP, right? And let's just say, for argument's sake, your body can make 100 of them, right? And while we're resting during this rest period for the next 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, if we are 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. 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. 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 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. And what happens is through focusing on ATP, this is how the muscle building, part of how the muscle building process works, because your muscles get bigger to utilize more ATP. So through that process, I would say it builds muscle. And when I bring up studies, 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, it makes you stronger. And we do know that 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. Easy to see how that'll help you in the muscle building part of it. 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 not just safe, and 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, even 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 brain function now and cognition, but, and two, to be able to really get it in your system. I mean, is that really a factor or not? So you build up creatine stores or ATP, and it takes, let's say it takes 10 days 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, it 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 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 though is that if you did do that, it doesn't hurt because then you get the brain benefits. Today's giveaway is MAPS Muscle Mommy. If you want to win, leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll notify you in the comment section. We also have a brand new workout program bundle. It's the spring bundle. MAPS Symmetry, MAPS Prime, and the Advanced Training Techniques Guide. All of that together, over 50% off. Head over to mapsmarch.com. Here comes the show. The brain benefits, which we'll get to, probably happen with higher doses because in order to get past what the muscles need and everything else, you need a higher dose. Before that, I used to think that was a waste. Yes. You know, until these studies came out. Yeah, me too. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Do you guys remember what, some of the like fear-mongering and stuff around the creatine one? Yeah, it was like kidneys, they were gonna have to worry about that. Yeah, kidneys. So the places that they've done most studies for safety are kidney health, organ health, liver health. There were fears that it would increase, you know, muscle tears or injuries. That's also been dispelled. Oh yeah. Very safe for the kidneys. Unless you have 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. Yeah, sure. 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, that there's longevity benefits. So 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's 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. Yeah. 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 paramonopausal women and menopausal women. 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 to us. 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. And then too, like your point of like recovering from a bad night of sleep and recommending that. That's the most interesting one. They did studies on sleep deprived individuals where they would purposely sleep deprive them. And then they do a battery of tests to look at their cognitive function. And you can always do, you could see like the difference, right? Like we did these tests. When you weren't sleep deprived, then 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 it. Now this doesn't mean, I wanna be clear, this is not a replacement for sleep. So it's not like, oh cool, I'm gonna get back to sleep. No, this is a bandaid. But if you're like- But 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 make a dose creatine. 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. You actually see an IQ increase with vegans. You don't see- Of course, that makes sense 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. By the way, creatine's a vegan supplement. So if you're a vegan and you don't want to take, you're like, oh, I want to take creatine, but it's derived from animals, it's not. It's actually vegan the way they create it. How's that possible? Amino acid, there's a process. This is what happened in the early 90s, is 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. Oh, it was considered cheap when we bought it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember when it was so, it was way more expensive. Well, it was like $50 for, this is back in like 92, 93, for like 30 servings. It's 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. When you think about it, that's so cheap when you consider inflation and everything, too. There's not a lot of things that you were buying 20 years ago at a price, and it's half the price. Even with inflation. Yeah, so when you think about that, it's dramatically decreased if you factor that in. But if you're a vegan, so my vegan clients that I used to train, there were a couple supplements that I would always make them take because I just, almost every time, if they took it, we saw a huge difference. One of them was essential amino acids. I would have them supplement essential amino acids with their meals. The other one was a multivitamin, a multimineral, which I would recommend to most people. Creatine, with vegan clients, was like, they would come in four or five days later, and they're like, this totally changed their lives. You know, speaking of multivitamin, I think that we predicted this a long time ago, that creatine would become a longevity and daily use thing that, I think, there's companies already that are putting it in multivitamins, so it's already turning into that right now. 100%. It's only a matter of time before everybody's recommending it and it's thought of the same way like that. Here's another one. It doesn't bloat you. This is like a big myth around creatine. Explain how our body holds water, the difference between when it's between the skin and when it's in the muscle, because that's the big difference. Yeah, so if you're a woman and you have a regular cycle, you know that sometimes, especially when progesterone is high, you're just more bloated. And this is just, you're holding more water and it's under the skin. It can make you look puffy and it looks different. Yeah, it's between the skin and the muscle and it looks puffy, it looks like body fat. Exactly. Now, when you take creatine, you increase intracellular fluid, in particular, in your muscles. So your muscles, which are like 70% fluid, now hold a little bit more because ATP draws in water. So here's what happens, and this is why some women freak out, is the scale will go up three pounds, right? Between two to four pounds, let's say one to four pounds is what a woman will typically see on the scale, usually around two, and they'll freak out and they'll feel bigger. And so like, okay, creatine's making me bloated, I heard about this. No, your muscles are rounder and fuller, they feel more toned, they're more shapely, they're more hydrated. You have just hydrated your muscles better with creatine and it's not the same thing as bloat. It doesn't cause that kind of water retention, it's intracellular. Do you remember, I told you this a long time ago on the podcast, do you remember how I used to use this for when I would cut for a show? No. So I would intentionally not use creatine when I would be bulking, although I understand all the benefits of it for building muscle, it's not, I get it. I used it more psychologically. And the reason why I did this was, it was really difficult for me. I have the reverse effect of somebody who's always felt overweight, I felt as always skinny, so it was always hard for me to go on a cut because I felt like you're small. Yeah, all of a sudden the glycogen gets pulled up. When you are depleted, it depletes all the glycogen stores. So your muscle bellies look, in the bodybuilding world we call it flat looking, right? And so you know when you deplete all that, your body is probably metabolizing body fat and you're leaning out and that's all part of the process. And as a young kid who was insecure about being skinny and not building muscle, it always would mess with my head. I'd try and go on a little bit of a cut or a diet. Oh my God, I'm losing muscle, I can see it. It looks like I've lost some, but all it was was my muscles were deflated. And I knew that when I went into the competing world how much of a kind of a mind **** that was for me. And so I would intentionally not really use creatine that much during the bulking process. And then when I switch over to the cut, then I would take high doses of it and load water so it would fill my muscle bellies up a little bit so I'd have less of that psychological flat feeling. And it was great because it made me feel fuller, I had better pumps in the workouts, it looked better. And as I know, I'm having to push myself through this. So that's how I used to use it when I was competing. By the way, because it increases intracellular water, you're going to want to drink more water when you're on creatine. It's funny because I have some friends that one of them's a doctor and her husband, so it's a couple good friends of mine, and she's asking me about creatine because now it's like well-known that it's good for you, she's in the medical space, and she's like, should I take this? I'm like, oh my God, absolutely. So her and her husband started taking it. Now, both of them came back to me, they're like, I need to drink way more water. I'm like thirstier. I'm like, yeah, your body, your muscles are more hydrated and you're going to need more water as a result. Now, I never noticed this, and a lot of my clients didn't necessarily notice this because I would always promote them to drink more water anyway. So if you're drinking a lot of water, you're not going to notice this, but if you're the average person who could benefit from drinking a half a gallon to a gallon of water a day, which is what we typically recommend, so you only drink a few glasses of water a day like a lot of people, then you start taking creatine, you may suddenly notice my mouth is dry, my eyes are dry, what's going on? Your muscles are holding more water, you need more water. This makes me wonder, though, too, with back in the days where they had a lot of fear around this was you'd have some athletes, like they were obviously already dehydrated, and then they were on creatine, and they were trying to pin it on creatine, and they had all these symptoms. Like muscle cramps. Yeah, but it requires a lot more hydration in excess. You gotta drink more water because you have more ATP, your muscles are holding more fluid, which is good, so you'll need to drink more water. By the way, when the scale goes up two pounds, just for the women listening, because a lot of women freak out over that because the scale is so scary. Oh my God, it went up. So 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. They're all third-party tested. Some of the best, most backed by science supplements you'll find anywhere. Nothing is in the bottle that doesn't have something backing it in terms of data. It's great stuff. Go check them out. Get yourself a huge discount through our link. Go to buylegion.com forward slash mindpump. Use the code mindpump, and you can buy one, get one 50% off. We also have a brand new program bundle. It's called the Spring Bundle. This includes our program MAPS Symmetry, MAPS Prime, and the Advanced Training Techniques Guide. All of that under, excuse me, over 50% off. You can get all for 147. Just head over to mapsmarch.com. Here comes the show. When it goes up two pounds, and it's intracellular, intramuscular fluid, your, now it wouldn't register on a sensitive body fat test because it's not a huge percentage, but your body fat percentage actually goes down a slight bit because your lean body mass went up. Lean body mass is everything that isn't body fat. So when you get a test, and you're looking at lean body mass and fat mass, it's fat mass is fat. Lean body mass is bone, organ, water. It's everything that isn't fat mass. So when you add two pounds on the scale, it's good. Your muscles, again, are fuller, they're rounder. And you have to understand this because if you're so scared about getting bigger, you may feel a little bigger because your muscles are fuller, but I'm telling you, you look better. This is a really good thing. And hopefully if you're listening to this, you understand that. Okay, the goal is to build muscle. But again, it doesn't bloat you. That's not what it does. Next up, it probably helps with fat loss. In fact, I brought up some studies and there was a meta-analysis. Now, is that indirectly because you're building muscle therefore doing it or there's actually some sort of mechanism that's causing you to split? So there's a lot of studies that show that there's a little bit of a fat loss effect. There was one meta-analysis of adults aged 50 and older. I mean, it makes sense that if every cell operates and utilizes creatine and taking creatine creates that ability for it to function at a faster rate, that metabolically it could be positive too. Yes, and if it builds more muscle, you get a metabolic boost. That's what makes the obvious sense is like if you build more muscle that way. That's right, that's right. So here's one study. This was actually a meta-analysis and it showed that creatine supplementation during resistance training led to 0.5 kilograms greater fat mass loss compared to placebo. That's not a ton. You know, what is that, a pound extra? But in the world of fat loss, any supplement, that's actually pretty good. But at least this points to one thing. If it does trend in any direction, it trends towards fat loss. And it's great because it's not a stimulant. It's not making your heart rate go up. It's none of those crazy things. So, and indirectly, like you said, if it helps build muscle, if it makes you stronger so you're lifting more weight and you understand fat loss, it's like what's really important with fat loss is I got a good metabolic rate, this is actually one of the best supplements you could take for that process. And then lastly, this one's a really good one, is it helps with bone strength. So they did a two-year randomized controlled trial. Remember, like I said, I gotta say this again, it's one of the most studied supplement, if not the most studied supplement that exists. So thousands of studies. And they're long. This is a two-year randomized controlled trial. You know how hard it is to find something that long that's randomized? In post-menopausal women, showed that creatine supplementation with exercise increased bone density greater than not using creatine. Now, what's the theory on that? Well, there were resistance training. So you're already strength training. So both groups are gonna see increases in bone mass, right? But now one of them is lifting a little heavier. So the tension on the bone. I mean, everything goes back to that, it's just connected to just getting stronger and building more muscle. Getting stronger and building more muscle has all these, it has better brain health benefits, it has better stuff for metabolism benefits. I mean, you look better benefits, it's almost all connected back to that. It is. You have more energy to push more weight and to be stronger, which then in turn builds more muscle. And building more muscle does all these things. Less brain fog. What's funny about, what's interesting about this is because women for a long time, although they're starting to hear this, it's starting to get advertised to them quite a bit. And women are starting to kind of figure this out. We've got really, really awesome people out there like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who's like promoting creatine to women. So they're starting to hear this. But there's been, there's this fear around creatine for so long with women around the, oh, it bloats me, that's a myth, or I don't want to gain a pound or two on the scale. What's interesting about the studies is the benefits that they show for women are actually greater than the benefits they're showing. It's greater for women. It's actually, I would say. Bone density-wise, it's a big problem. Bone density and things like anxiety and depression. There's greater effects in women. And I'm not quite sure why, maybe that women eat less meat to begin with and they get less creatine. Yeah, but again, is it all connected back to getting stronger and building more muscle? Because if you have bigger muscles, you're going to have bigger reserve tanks. And if you have bigger reserve tanks, that allows you to eat in a calorie surplus and not have brain fog and not overspill. And like, wouldn't that theoretically be part of the reason why all that? No, I think, because what I'm talking about is they compare men and women who supplement with creatine. So they're both supplementing with creatine. Both get benefits. Women seem to get more benefits. And I think it might be because women generally eat less animal protein anyway. They're smaller, they don't need to eat as much. If anyone's going to shy away from eating too much meat. I mean, that tracks with the vegan reason. That's right, that's right. So it's a great supplement to take, man or woman, but especially if you're female. And this has gone from, in my opinion, what I mean by that is, I used to recommend creatine when people would ask me, what supplement should I take? To now, it's like, this is actually one of the few that are like, definitely, definitely take this. This makes a big difference. Now I know, we have a guide, Doug, that we're sending people to? No, we have a masterclass. Masterclass. Oh, this is great. So this is a build your butt masterclass, which is, you can go to mapsbooty.com and check it out. Basically, it's free and we're breaking down the best butt building exercises, the technique, the form, how you maximize building your butt. It's totally free. It's at mapsbooty.com. You can also find us on Instagram, Mind Pump Media. We'll see you there.