Hello all, as per title, wanna hear your opinion and maybe experience, if any, about the best time of taking creatine.

Currently, I take one serving after I get home on workout day, and another together with my next whey protein serving - usually in the next morning. I dont take it any other time.

I'm using MuscleTech Creactor at the moment, suggested serving is no more than 2/day and immediately after workout on a workout day.

Doesn't matter I think, as long as you get 5g a day. Meh, I don't know man, creatine doesn't do shit for me. Oral rehydration salt works much better for me as a performance enhancer during a bulk.

5g? Man, the one i use contains only 1.5g per serving and heck i dont even take them twice a day.. I didnt feel it has helped me the last time i tried it. But there was a promo so i decided to give it another shot. Probably more for placebo effect.

Oral rehydration salt? The one prescribed for diarrhea usually?

Yup. Sodium and potassium works really well for me. Ever since I started supplementing them religiously, any cramps in my calves and quads during squats have been eliminated entirely. Soreness doesn't last very long either. I'm able to go harder and longer during my training session, much like the effect creatine is supposed to give. I suppose I'm a really heavy sweater, I sweat too damn much, so supplementing electrolytes really makes sense for me. All these effects were never present when I took creatine unfortunately. All creatine did for me was give me diarrhea.

I can just add more salt to my food of course, but I lose out on the potassium. That's why I take ORS with a shit ton of water. Like 4-5 liters a day. People and doctors in general have an irrational fear of salt. My doctor last week was shocked when I told her I supplement about 2-3g of sodium and about 0.5-1g of potassium a day, even though my blood works show that my electrolyte levels are very optimum. If you workout, if you drink a lot of water, and if you are a person who sweats a lot, supplementing electrolytes is a good way to enhance your performance.

The lengths that u have gone bro, is quite extraordinary. I personally wouldnt have touched ORS, even when I have diarrhea, I prefer to drink just plain water, as ineffective as it may be.

But now kinda tempted to give it a try since creatine hasnt shown its effect on me.

When i first buy creatine i ask the guy how to use then he said have loading phase first for few days about 20g per day then take 5g

After some research basically loading phase doesn't matter as long as you take 5g a day

Haha, naa man. I'm a noob still, still much to learn and much more strength to gain. You can try it if you want, but proceed with caution. Do your homework and read up about it. You don't really need to supplement electrolytes if you're not experiencing cramps, prolonged soreness, or things like fatigue, headaches, etc. Basically symptoms of dehydration. A lot of people are dehydrated without them knowing it. Drinking water alone will not help as much as more and more water will give you a diuretic effect, causing you to lose even more water instead of retaining it. Water retention is after all, the very effect we're looking for in order to boost performance. That is the reason on weigh in week, people like me who are cutting water weight to make weight drink up to 10 liters of water a day to force the body to not retain water. Next week will be hell for me.

Yeah I heard about the loading phase too, it's even printed under the suggested servings.

But what is your experience of using it? Like before after? Because I dont know what changes to be expected actually. And have u played with timing of taking it? Pre-post-intra?

Been using it for 3 weeks right now and i can see slight difference for my lifts and reps

Timing doesn't matter but i take post workout only

I have tried Dymatize and Universal's Creatine few years back. It did not do shit for me. Not even placebo haha damn sad bro

Alright thanks for the sharing bro. I also take it post workout but cant feel a shit yet.


Haha u're definitely not alone bro. Figured out what doesnt work is almost the same as finding out what works. Bonus: u get to save some bucks in this case.

It takes time bro. Come back within few weeks or one month then you can feel the difference

I know it takes time bro, but i have finished one bottle before this and couldnt tell the difference. That time I even followed the suggest serving of 5g per day.

If anything, that experience made me feel opposed to creatine because it is not completely soluble and tastes even worse when i took it alone without whey.
But luckily the one im currently using still tastes ok...

Your diet must be something wrong then

Could be. But I thought creatine helps more in performance rather than growth of muscle? In the sense of lifting heavier/ more reps, faster recovery etc.

Of course then those leads to growth of muscle, but i meant shouldnt i see the difference in performance? Iirc, that time i actually felt weaker, but then again, there are other factors at play, so I give a creatine another shot.

It works for everyone. You just have possibly saturated creatine levels due to naturally occurring creatine in your foods so it's not going to have any added benefits.

Gawd some of you need to realize the beneficial effects of creatine are chronic. Means it needs to reach saturation levels for it to be utilized. 5g a day, for the rest of your life till you die. Simple. Doesn't matter what time of the day.

And for those who claim creatine doesn't "work" for them, it's either:-
1. expectations too high (it is 100% proven to work, but it's not magic)
2. your creatine levels are already saturated from possibly other creatine sources in your diet.

At the end of day it's just a supplement not some magic powder like whey protein

How exactly would I know if that's the case? To get 5g of creatine from meat would mean I would have to eat a almost 1kg of animal protein, which I definitely do not. Or do you mean to say saturated levels for me would be at a much lower dose of creatine than 5g?

If your levels are saturated, it doesn't matter if you take in naturally occurring creatine in food equivalent to 1 to 5g.