Stronger with Creatine

Stronger with Creatine

Creatine is a supplement long used by explosive and strength-based athletes. So why have we at Umara, with our focus on endurance sports, chosen to develop and sell our own creatine?

The answer is quite simple – creatine has positive effects! Researchers agree that creatine intake can lead to a performance improvement of 4–8% regardless of gender, age, and previous training level in strength training and explosive repetitive movements. And we believe the research is clear that strength training has an essential role in serious endurance athletes' training programs. Increased strength helps prevent injuries and makes it easier to respond to bursts or sprints, whether it's running, cycling, or skiing.

We recommend using creatine primarily during the build-up season when most people focus more on strength training. Being able to lift a little heavier or do a few extra repetitions can yield significant results over 2–6 months of foundational training and becomes a smart investment for the competition season.

However, since creatine also has benefits for endurance performance and recovery, it can be advantageously used year-round, whether the training focus is on strength or endurance.
Source: PubMed

Creatine for Endurance Athletes

According to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in Sports Medicine 2023, creatine monohydrate supplementation can improve endurance performance in trained individuals. The study showed that creatine intake can increase the time to exhaustion during high-intensity endurance activities, likely by enhancing anaerobic work capacity.
Source: PubMed

In addition to performance improvements, research has also shown that creatine supplementation can accelerate recovery after intense training. According to a review article in Nutrients 2021, creatine can reduce muscle damage and inflammation and promote quicker restoration of muscle strength after strenuous physical activity.
Source: PubMed

These results suggest that creatine can be beneficial for endurance athletes, especially during training periods focusing on strength and high-intensity training.

What Makes Creatine Enhance Strength and Explosive Capability?

The reason why creatine supplementation provides performance-enhancing effects in anaerobic short-term tasks is primarily that it helps restore our most explosive short-term fuel, ATP. Creatine binds to phosphate in the body and creates something called creatine phosphate, which acts as an extra energy reserve in the muscles.

The effect of having an extra layer of phosphate in the cells is that we restore our explosive fuel faster and can perform a few extra repetitions or sprint the last 20 meters on the treadmill or uphill when the legs burn.

Several studies have also shown that creatine can help speed up carbohydrate storage. A study from 2016 showed that consuming 5x5 grams of creatine per day along with 0.5–1 liter of extra water significantly accelerated the re-storage of muscle glycogen. This was so effective that even exercisers without a super-efficient recovery system could restore full, or even overfull, glycogen stores already 24 hours after finishing.
Source: PubMed

Usage

The recommended loading dose is 0.3g/kg body weight per day for 5 days, which corresponds to 25g/day for an 80kg person. The advice is to spread the intake throughout the day, for example, 5x5g/day for 5 days, and thereafter 5g/day as a maintenance dose to quickly load up and maintain the levels.

You can also skip the loading phase and take 5g/day directly. The effect will be the same, but it takes longer to reach maximum levels, which is why we recommend a loading phase for time efficiency.