Creatine Seems To Build Power... But It’s Complicated
The supplement I doubted until my watts didn't lie
David Roche from The Feed <[email protected]>
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TheFeed promotes the use of creatine as a supplement for endurance athletes, particularly cyclists, citing rapid power gains and positive research findings. The brand highlights the potential benefits of creatine, including increased ATP resynthesis and improved cognitive performance. TheFeed specifically recommends their own product, The Feed Lab Creatine.
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Let's start with a provocative statement. If I’m advising an elite cyclist who is trying to become a power monster, my first suggestion: start taking creatine (my favorite is The Feed Lab Creatine).
That’s a change from a few years ago. My strategy for vetting training approaches or supplements is always the same: talk to people in the arena. I focus mostly on pro running, and very few of the athletes and coaches I talked to thought creatine was useful. So while the research looked promising, I thought that the studies must be missing something.
In recent years, I’ve started having more of those conversations with top cyclists, including some big names that will be kept confidential in my brain chamber of secrets. And in that sport, creatine use seems much more common (especially outside of peak race season, especially for female cyclists). After suggesting creatine to some cyclists based on that inside information, we saw rapid power gains, often 10-20 watts higher for already astronomical FTPs.
That made me reevaluate my bias against creatine for endurance athletes. Let’s start by checking my initial bias directly--my first interaction with creatine came back when I played football. Kids were taking it to get swoll, not to run far. I think that stuck in my mind, making me receptive to the negative anecdotes I heard, like bloating and cramping. In the meantime, some generally positive (but nuanced) research piled up.
According to a 2023 review, creatine could lead to “a greater capacity to rapidly resynthesize ATP and buffer hydrogen ion accumulation,” while increasing glycogen recovery, reducing inflammation, and improving cognitive performance, possibly countered by slight increases in body mass. Performance studies generally show improved output in intervals and sprints, but mixed evidence in time trials and races.
There is still immense uncertainty about how creatine influences longer events like marathons and ultras. I heard stories of cramping and rougher performance, so I usually only suggested creatine when an athlete was particularly power-limited (especially for aging athletes).
Then I had these conversations with world-class cyclists. And I think there is some intuitive connection between the research findings and its use in cycling, since increasing top-end power requires intervals and winning races requires massive late-race sprints. Both will probably get stronger with creatine, so taking it when building power and dialing back for competition makes a lot of sense.
What about running? I’m still unsure. Running also requires intervals and glycogen recovery, and we all could use a bit more ATP in our lives. But I don’t think there’s that much creatine use at the top end of professional road running (unless my sample is non-representative). Running is almost always a bit behind cycling--is that it? Or is there something that we can’t isolate in a lab happening in longer events? Could it alter muscle fiber recruitment or something weird like that?
In classic “me” fashion, I decided it was time for an experiment. I started taking The Feed Lab creatine (which is in the highest grade Creapure formulation), 5 grams per day. I have reams of data on myself over the last decade, so maybe there’d be something interesting?
Over the next 2 weeks, my resting heart rate dropped lower than it ever had. I set bike power records. Vibes-wise, I just felt better, especially cognitively. My jokes had just the right amount of fart references (zero).
Should everyone be taking creatine? I still don’t think so. Fart jokes are important. Also, the pro road runners I coach are not taking it yet. Here is our creatine criteria:
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