Creatine & Whey Protein

[TW]Sponge

[TW]Sponge

[TW]Sponge

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Joined
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Hereford
Hi guys, just got myself the things in the title. Wondering if pure creatine is a good thing? Myself personally I'm not too sure about it. Does anybody in here take it? Also I've got myself some whey protein. When would you say is the best time to drink it? and how often?

Cheers guys, (I am new to all this!)

Sponge x
 
First up, dont buy things unless you need them or if they might not help.

How do you know if you need them? Work out your diet and see if you need protein shakes. Or see if there is somewhere that a shake could be advantageous.

Will it help? Have a read about what it is and see if it makes sense to you :P



When should you have protein shakes? If you are new then you probably dont need them, a good diet will be enough.

So, whats your general diet like?
 
Yep, it seems like you have a few misconceptions about these supplements.

First of all, "pure creatine" could actually be a few things. Creatine monohydrate, creatine ethyl ester etc. etc. They are all supposed to do the same thing, but have different absorbtion rates. Provided what you have isn't in some way contaminated, it won't do you any harm what-so-ever. Creatine is supposed, at best, to do three things. First of all, creatine, in the form of creatine phosphate, is used in the muscles as a phosphate buffer allowing for rapid replenishment of ATP levels. Having more creatine phosphate in the muscles theoretically allows for a longer duration of high power output. Secondly, as creatine is actively transported into the muscles, it creates an osmotic gradient which causes more water to enter the muscle. This can cause the muscle the look bigger. Thirdly, because of effect two, more nutrients will enter the muscle which can help recovery etc.

Whey is just protein, albeit fast absorbing protein. So either take it post gym session to quickly get amino acids into your muscles for repair, or to generally up your daily protein intake.

But as morba says, sort your diet first and so some reading :)
 
Water retention is the downside to creatine, there was a discussion about it in a thread last year, i can't remember what the thread was called...

Seeing as you now have the products, just take one mid-morning, mid-afternoon and before bed and use the creatine mid-morning and mid-afternoon with your protein.
 
If you are new to training then my advice would be to leave the creatine alone for now. When you're more experienced you'll benefit more from it and be able to decide for yourself if you want to scratch the itch.

In regards to the whey protein providing you have a good diet and decent regular training then one or two scoops immediatley after your workout will suffice. This is one of the most important times to ingest protein (and carbs).

You best bet is to read up on exactly what each product does and how it works. Creatine can be a bit hit and miss. There's a lot of hype around it by people who really aren't very clued up. A few weeks ago a member on another motors forum I use suggested that somebody who was severly underweight start taking creatine if he wants to pack on muscle. The most misguided advice I've ever heard and I let everybody know why.

It can be effective but imo it has no place in a beginners supplementation plan. Personally the only thing a beginner should be supplementing would be whey pwo and some fish oils if you don't like/eat a lot of fish. Though a comprehensive diet removes the need for both of these.

If your diet, training and rest are all awful it wouldn't matter how much you supplemented you'd still get no where.

You can't out-supplement a bad diet likewise you can't out-train a bad diet nor can you over eat to compensate for poor training.
 
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What Benny says is true, as a beginner it's best not to jump into "fancy" supplementation. In most of these supps (creatine, HMB, BCAA's, etc.) the effects are very subjective and some people might not see any benefit at all. As a newbie you won't be able to differentiate between the effects of the supps and your standard training response. Not to mention that you'll be playing around with different gym routines, the last thing you want is MORE variables to manage.

Good diet > supplements

Even at higher levels, perfect supplementation probably (brace yourselves for a made up statistic) only contributes 15% at the very most.
 
icecold said:
Even at higher levels, perfect supplementation probably (brace yourselves for a made up statistic) only contributes 15% at the very most.
Click to expand...

I'd go to say that even 5-10% would be very generous in terms of lean muscle gain.

Supplements to aid recovery and reduce DOMS can be worth their weight in gold though!
 
When I first started out, I got caught up in the whole "must buy every supplement going" attitude. Creatine being one of them

It offered no value to me at that stage what so ever, as I wasn't training hard or seriously enough to see the benefits. If anything all it did was make me feel disheartened as I wondered why I looked so puffy (Monohydrate gives me major bloat, CEE gives me none luckily)

Definitely use the Whey though, post workout it's crucial you take in a quick release protein in that first 20-30 minutes after finishing. As well as carbs such as dextrose
 
Thanks a million for the advice guys, really helped me. I have done as suggested and just had 1 scoop of protein after a good gym session. I don't feel aches or pains in any of my muscles at the moment, is the protein really that good? Also my diet is lacking in most good nutrients at the moment, I could do with some help in choosing the right foods for meals during the day, especially if it is going to help my workout routine.
 
Feel free to post up your diet at some point and we'll take a look.

Also with the whey after the gym, aim to have around 40g's worth of protein, which will probably be 50g of actual product.
 
icecold said:
Feel free to post up your diet at some point and we'll take a look.

Also with the whey after the gym, aim to have around 40g's worth of protein, which will probably be 50g of actual product.
Click to expand...

Umm, I wouldn't call my eating habits a 'diet' as such! Basically I just eat whatever is in the fridge. All I want is a bit of stability in my food, a lot more healthy meals than I am eating at the moment. All I basically eat is junk. I need to get into a routine of what I am eating. Am I making much sense lol. Basically change my eating habits completely because that is the thing that's letting me down, as you can see I have just posted a couple of pics in the bodybuilding pics thread.
 
You eating habits are your diet.

'A diet' isn't something you go on to loose weight it's the food you eat. When people say 'I'm on a diet' it's like what? did you not eat before or something? Changing your diet is easy. Have a quick search and see what we usually suggest. Post up your current diet and then post up what you think you should change it to. Where we can we'll try to explain why we make the suggestions we do.
 
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