Effects of Creatine Supplementation - Free Paper Example

Introduction

Many athletes use a variety of performance-enhancing drugs and supplements to achieve their quests such as running farther, jumping higher, and winning the competition (Cintineo et al., 2018). Creatine makes one of the most popular substances used to enhance muscle mass and increasing strength among the athletes. Creatine is much known and used due to its accessibility. Creatine is available in powder, drink mix, energy bars, and tablets which are available without physician's prescription at supermarkets, drug stores, over the internet, and in nutrition stores (Cintineo et al., 2018). Creatine is made up of natural substance which changes to creatine phosphate while in the human body to make adenosine triphosphate responsible for providing energy in muscle tightening. The human body can make its creatine however could also come from foods rich in protein such as meat and fish. Despite creatine being a natural substance, it has not been studied over a long time. Researchers are not sure of the possible effects of creatine in the body but in a short time, there is evidence that creatine is safe for high-intensity resistance during training (Bird, 2003). The paper evaluates the impact of creatine supplementation on body performance and training adaptions.

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Usage of Creatine

Scientists first discovered that taking creatine in supplement form can enhance physical performance in the 1970s. It is in the1990s when the athletes recognized creatine and started using making it a popular supplement in sports (Cintineo et al., 2018). The supplement is popular among athletes, football and hockey players, gymnasts, and wrestlers. The use of creatine is thought to help improve strength, increasing lean muscle mass, and helping in quick recovery of muscles in times of exercise. Muscular boosting helps athletes in achieving ruptures of swiftness and energy mostly in short sessions of intense training which need strength and power like sprinting and gym. Scientific researches on creatine are contracting as some say it does not help in improving performance during short bouts also no evidence of creatinine helping with endurance sports. Besides, research shows that creatine does not respond in everyone's muscle as some users see no benefit (Bird, 2003). Creatine helps in gaining muscles through boosting workload, improving cell signaling, raising the anabolic hormones, lowering myostatin levels, reducing protein breakdown, and increasing cell hydration.

Effects of Creatine Supplementation on Performance

There are numerous researches on the effect of short-term creatine supplementation on performance in exercises. Most of the studies suggest that creatine supplements substantially upsurge strength, power, performance in sprinting, and tasks done within maximal muscle contraction efforts. The creatine supplements rise total creatine (TC) and phosphocreatine (PC) concentration in muscles which play a critical role in increasing energy metabolism in high-intensity activities (Bemben & Lamont, 2005). The increment of PC availability theoretically, enhances cellular bioenergetics of the phosphagen system that affects the performance of powerful exercises. Also, the availability of PC enhances the ferrying of high energy phosphates among the cytosol and the mitochondria via creatine phosphate shuttle to improve anaerobiotic and aerophilous (Kreider et al., 2017).

Creatine supplementation increases the ability to perform high-intensity exercises significantly just like the carbohydrate loading boosts to the potential of performing endurance exercise to fatigue. Over 70% of studies conducted on short-term creatine supplementation, reports ergogenic assistance, especially during repetitive high-intensity exercises (Kreider et al., 2017). The results have been collected after performing laboratory tests and faced critique on reliability in the field performance. Apart from the laboratory reports, creatine supplementation improves performance in field events such as swimming, soccer, and running (Kreider et al., 2017). The benefits of creatine are evident in diseased, untrained, and trained children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly population. For the studies that reports less significant impacts of creatine supplementation in performance have detected minor enhancements that are insignificant as none of the studies reported a significant negative effect of creatine supplementation. Thus, evidence indicates that creatine supplementation enhances performance.

Effects of Creatine Supplementation on Training Adaptations

In the theoretical sense improving the ability to perform high-intensity exercise causes more training adaptions in the long run. Researchers have been done to study the effects of creatine supplementation on training adaptions and showed various results. Studies on the effects of creativity on muscle TC and PC storage review increment of the components when creatine is taken. During training, creatine supplementation is related to a 0.5 to 2 kg growth of body mass and fat-free mass (FFM) (Cintineo et al., 2018). Despite the notion that initial body gain as a result of creatine supplementation is because of fluid holding, several pieces of research show that long term creatine supplementation adds the muscle fiber width without a significant upsurge of water in the body. Therefore, the weight gain observed in times of training is attributed to be muscle mass.

More than 90% of studies of long-term training shows ergogenic benefits with gains ranging from 10 to 100% greater than the controls (Kreider et al., 2017). The improvements do not depend on the ages as both untrained and trained teenagers, adults, and the elderly population report improvements. There are no reports on clinically significant side effects reported despite much of the studies involving intense training in different exercising conditions (Bird, 2003). Thus, evidence shows that creatine supplementation during training is suitable and effective in enhancing training adaptations. Also, the beneficial changes from creatine supplementation can offer therapeutic advantages for various pathologies involving muscle weakness and wasting (Bird, 2003).

Importance of Creatine Supplementation on Performance and Training Adaptations

Creatine offers an ergogenic value that is beneficial to the athletes. It enables gaining maximum strength and power to the weightlifters and bodybuilders athletes which are accompanied by muscle hypertrophy. The athletes are encouraged to ingest a nutritional supplement to promote strength gains during training for maximum performance (Bird, 2003). Effects of creatine supplementation on performance and training adaptability is an interesting topic considering the various benefits and negative effects associated with supplementation.

Creatine is a type of amino acid that is available in the human body muscles as well as the brains. It can be obtained from seafood and red meat or be made by the liver, kidney, and pancreases. Despite the availability of creatine in the human body and foods, other people take creatine supplementations which raise concerns on the possible benefits to performance and training adaptations. Also taking creatine orally is associated with several side effects that can affect an athlete's performance and training. Some of the side effects include dehydration, weight gains, heat intolerance, muscle cramping, dizziness, water retention, fever, nausea, and gastrointestinal pain (Cintineo et al., 2018). However, the side effects are a result of taking creatine supplementation in high doses which damage the heart, kidney, and liver.

Impact of Creatine to Careers

Creatine supplementation has gained popularity as a crucial nutritional ergogenic assistance for the athletes (Bird, 2003). Its goals of any athlete to have the maximum performance to win trophies and have a strong body muscle. Creatine supplementation then impacts the career of an athlete by increasing the intermuscular creatine concentrations, improving the performance of exercises, and improving training adaptations which are vital in career life. Further creatine supplementation is associated with other benefits in career life such as increasing post-exercise recovery, helping in preventing injuries, rehabilitation, body temperature regulations, and enhancing spinal cord neuroprotection (Kreider, 2003). It is for an athlete's importance in understanding the role and safety of creatine supplementation while in sports and exercises.

The essence of creatine supplementation to careers is the reported ergogenic value added to the athlete's body. The supplement increases the availability of creatine and phosphocreatine and therefore, can improve cute exercise capacity and training adaptions to persons with careers in sports. The enhancement of athlete training adaptations allows an athlete to perform more work over several sprints which increase the strength, muscle mass, and general performance making training be of quality (Cintineo et al., 2018). Creatine is prevalent in sports because it is allowed by most sports organizations. It is high in foods especially proteins making it hard to be banned in the application by the athlete. Creatine supplements can thus be purchased and used by athletes without penalties and be beneficial to one's career. Both in sports and military creatine supplementation helps enhance performance.

Conclusion

Creatine is a beneficial and harmless nutritional ergogenic support to improving high-intensity exercise executions and training adaptations to participants in various sporting. Creatine supplementation contains numerous health benefits and safety advantages such as reducing neurological injuries and head trauma in contact sports. Creatine supplementation hence has positive effects on user performance and training adaptations.

References

Bemben, M. G., & Lamont, H. S. (2005). Creatine supplementation and exercise performance. Sports Medicine, 35(2), 107-125.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-200535020-00002

Bird, S. P. (2003). Creatine supplementation and exercise performance: a brief review. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, 2(4), 123.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3963244/

Cintineo, H. P., Arent, M. A., Antonio, J., & Arent, S. M. (2018). Effects of protein supplementation on performance and recovery in resistance and endurance training. Frontiers in Nutrition, 5, 83. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00083/full

Kreider, R. B. (2003). Effects of creatine supplementation on performance and training adaptations. Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 244(1-2), 89-94.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1022465203458

Kreider, R. B., Kalman, D. S., Antonio, J., Ziegenfuss, T. N., Wildman, R., Collins, R., ... & Lopez, H. L. (2017). International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 14(1), 1-18. https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0173-z.