Trial reveals ‘no difference’ when it comes to popular gym product

A single scroll through social media and you’ll find plenty of fitness influencers boasting about creatine — but it might be a waste of money.

A single scroll through social media and you’ll find plenty of fitness influencers boasting about creatine — but a new study has claimed it isn’t as vital as you think.

Creatine monohydrate is typically touted as being one of the best supplements to help enhance lean muscle mass while doing resistance training. This is because it can influence things such as water in the body.

Creatine is also naturally produced, supplying energy to muscles and is produced by the liver, pancreas and kidneys.

But a clinical trial led by the University of New South Wales put 54 people between the ages of 18 and 50 through a 12-week resistance training problem. Each person had been doing less than the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of moderately intense exercise a week before the study.

Trial reveals ‘no difference’ when it comes to popular gym product. Picture: iStock

During the trial, each person went through the same training program and had their measurements taken regularly.

The research, published in Nutrients, said it found no difference between those who took the supplement at the recommended dose and those who didn’t.

“We’ve shown that taking five grams of creatine supplement per day does not make any difference to the amount of lean muscle mass people put on while resistance training,” said senior author Dr Mandy Hagstrom, from UNSW’s School of Health Sciences.

“The benefits of creatine may have been over-estimated in the past, due to methodological problems with previous studies.”

Previous studies on the topic have started the supplement and the exercise on the same day, with Dr Hagstrom saying it made it difficult to separate the impact on muscles.

So, for this trial those who were consuming the supplement started on a five gram per day dose a week before the exercise. Typically the recommended maintenance dose is three to five grams.

A clinical trial led by the University of New South Wales put 54 people between the ages of 18 and 50 through a 12-week resistance training problem. Picture: iStock

She said that during the first week people taking creatine did gain more lean body mass, particularly the women, however it soon dropped back to match those in the control group. The authors believe the muscle gain was simply caused by fluid retention. Other trials showed people gained a kilogram of muscle.

Dr Imtiaz Desai, the trial’s first author, said: “In theory then you would have expected our creatine group to put on three kilograms of muscle over the 12-week program, but they didn’t.”

The trial did confirm that those taking the creatine did bypass the loading phase, which is typical and includes taking up to 25 grams daily.

It concluded more research was needed on creatine doses.

Originally published as Trial reveals ‘no difference’ when it comes to popular gym product