Is it useful to drink creatine before strength training

For the vast majority of natural bodybuilders who regularly perform strength training, drinking creatine before training is indeed useful, but it is by no means the kind of "magic drug" that can instantly lift an extra twenty or thirty pounds after drinking it. It is more like replenishing the muscle's phosphate energy pool with two extra bars of backup power, which can help you hold on longer at critical moments.

However, there are some people who think it is completely useless. A brother I trained with before had to eat about half a catty of lean beef every meal. He also liked to drink sports drinks containing creatine. The creatine reserves in his muscles were already full. In the past few years, everyone would say that creatine is an IQ tax. , until last year when he was preparing for a competition to control fat, he reduced the amount of red meat to one-third of the original amount. When he was practicing leg deadlifts in the sixth set, he couldn't lift the second one, so he drank creatine for a week and did two more complete sets with the same weight. Only then did he finally let go and said that this thing is indeed useful.

Many people think that drinking creatine before training is useless. In fact, they confuse it with the nitrogen pump. Creatine does not give an immediate sense of excitement. It will not cause your heart to beat faster and your body to burst with energy after drinking it. Its effect is often reflected in the details: it is not easy to charge a heavy weight of more than 85% of 1RM. If you suddenly lose strength, you will be able to push 1-2 more reps on the edge of failure in the last set. This small improvement will not be noticed at all if you don't keep a training log. However, if you add up, the extra stimulation to the muscles each time will make your strength and muscle gains much more efficient in the long run.

Of course, there are different voices in the academic community. Many controlled experiments have shown that as long as you can supplement 3-5g of pure creatine every day, whether you drink it before training, after training, or in the morning with breakfast, there will be little difference in the long-term muscle-building effect for more than three months. I also tried a comparison for half a year when I had nothing to do. In the first three months, I drank a spoonful of creatine 15 minutes before each training. In the next three months, I drank it whenever I thought of it. The time was completely random. In terms of body feeling, it was indeed the same as when I drank it before training. The state of pushing heavy weights was more stable. It was rare that the first few groups were fine, but the last few groups suddenly lost power. Of course, it does not rule out the addition of psychological effects. Anyway, there is no additional burden on creatine. At most, there is a slight edema in the first week before I start drinking it. It will disappear after a few days of drinking as the body adapts to it. I am still used to adding a spoonful of creatine to the electrolyte water before training. It is a sure profit.