The more creatine phosphate you have in your muscles to be converted to ATP, the stronger your going to be.

This is the biggest benefit of creatine supplementation. By supplementing with creatine, you build up your stores of creatine phosphate in the muscle which prolongs the conversion of ATP. The result? You have more energy and power to blast up that weight. More power equals more muscle. That’s how it works to build muscle.

Creatine boosts the pace of energy production in your muscle cells. Creatine doesn’t build muscle directly. Creatine builds muscle by providing more energy to the muscle for additional muscle contractions. More energy means more power. More power means more reps. More reps means more muscle growth.

CREATINE BENEFITS...

What types of creatine are there?

There are many different forms of creatine supplements on the market today. The 4 major types of creatine include - creatine monohydrate, creatine phosphate, creatine citrate and creatine ethyl ester.

Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine Monohydrate is basically creatine bound with water. Each molecule of creatine monohydrate is made up of 88% creatine and 12% water. Or to put it another way - 1 gram of creatine monohydrate has 880 milligrams of creatine. This means that if you take 5 grams of creatine monohydrate you will really be putting 4.40 grams (5 * .88) of creatine in your body. Creatine Monohydrate is by far the most common form for a creatine supplement. The majority of studies and research have been conducted using creatine monohydrate.

Creatine Phosphate

Remember that in order for creatine to be effective it needs to bond with a phosphate group and become Creatine Phosphate. For this reason, you may think that directly taking Creatine Phosphate would be better than just taking Creatine Monohydrate. The fact is - taking a creatine phosphate supplement has never been shown to be more effective than just taking creatine monohydrate. Creatine Phosphate has only 62.3% creatine and 37.7% phosphate. This means that 1 gram only produces 623 milligrams of creatine. In addition, creatine phosphate is more expensive than creatine monohydrate.

Creatine Citrate

Creatine Citrate became popular because it is more water soluble than other forms of creatine. Simply put, it dissolves better when you mix it up. The problem is that Creatine Citrate has only 400 milligrams of creatine per gram of creatine citrate. In addition, it is more expensive than Creatine Monohydrate.

Creatine Esters

Creatine ester is a creatine monohydrate that has been esterified with either the alcohol methanol (creatine methyl ester) or ethanol (creatine ethyl ester).

After being absorbed by the body, creatine esters are split into creatine and the alcohol methanol or ethanol. This conversion occurs very quickly. Ten minutes after oral administration, the ester is no longer detectable and has been broken down completely into creatine, creatinine, and methanol or ethanol.
It has been shown that this breakdown takes place before it has been absorbed into the muscle cells.

Twelve percent of orally administered creatine ester is converted into creatinine after 30 minutes, and, in addition, esterification strongly promotes the conversion into creatinine. Creatinine is excreted via the kidneys. The alcohol—in the form of methanol or ethanol—needs to be detoxified by the liver. Methanol in particular is highly toxic and even small amounts can damage the nervous system.

If you're a creatine non-responder you may have success with the CEE

Creatine ethyl ester technology can potentially lead to improved absorption, less bloat and minimal water retention - comparative to creatine monohydrate

There are no studies that prove that creatine esters enhance performance. It is especially significant that there is no indication that these esters have an advantage over pure creatine monohydrate.

So is Creatine Monohydrate the best creatine supplement?

Not necessarily. Everyone responds differently to bodybuilding supplements. Every body is different, yielding different results with creatine supplementation. The problem comes from the fact that just getting the most creatine into your body is not the end of the story. How the creatine is absorbed plays a key rule. People who defend Creatine Citrate claim that it has a 90% absorption rate while Creatine Monohydrate has only a 40% rate. This means that while Creatine Citrate delivers less creatine per gram - a much higher percentage is absorbed by the muscles. If you do not respond well to regular forms of creatine, you may want to try creatine ethyl ester, as it has been shown to have higher absorption rates and may lead to larger gains in the gym.

Since almost every major study has been done with Creatine Monohydrate - it would be our choice for a creatine supplement.

Short-term use of creatine in healthy individuals is generally considered. Continuous intake of excessively high dosages of creatine may lead to any of several possible side effects. While it has been hypothesized that consistently high doses could lead to hypertension due to increased water retention , studies have not yet been able to demonstrate either long-term or short term creatine supplementation result in adverse health effects. Creatine supplementation utilizing proper cycling and dosages has not been linked with any adverse side effects beyond occasional dehydration due to increased muscular water uptake from the rest of the body.

According to the opinion statement of the European Food Safety Authorities (EFSA) published in 2004 it was concluded that "The safety and bioavailability of the requested source of creatine, creatine monohydrate in foods for particular nutritional uses, is not a matter of concern provided that there is adequate control of the purity of this source of creatine (minimum 99.95%) with respect to dicyandiamide and dihydro-1,3,5-triazine derivatives, as well as heavy metal contamination. The EFSA Panel endorses the previous opinion of the SCF that high loading doses (20 gram / day) of creatine should be avoided. Provided high purity creatine monohydrate is used in foods for particular nutritional uses, the Panel considers that the consumption of doses of up to 3g/day of supplemental creatine, similar to the daily turnover rate of creatine, is unlikely to pose any risk".

This opinion is corroborated by the fact that creatine is a natural component in mothers' milk and that creatine is absolutely necessary for brain development in the human embryo and the baby, as well as for optimal physiological functioning of the adult human body, especially the brain, nervous system, the muscles and other organs and cells of high energy expenditure, where the creatine kinase (CK) system is highly expressed and creatine levels are high.

Creatine is non-toxic and studies have been unable to find any serious negative side effects to its use. None of the studies carried out have shown creatine to be toxic substance. There is a lot of speculation as the whether or not creatine has any known side effects, and to date, there has not been any known, serious side effects (medium and long term) associated with creatine use.
As for kidney disease and creatine use, there hasn’t been one documented study done that suggests there is a negative relationship between the two. A study done by Jaques R. Poortmans and Marc Francaux, entitled “Long-Term Oral Creatine Supplementation Does Not Impair Renal Function In Healthy Athletes” compared kidney health and creatine use in healthy athletes for a period of 10 months to 5 years. According to their conclusions, supplementing with creatine did not have any adverse side effects on the kidneys.
However, in terms of short term use, some individuals may experience slight water retention and a little nausea when taking creatine in doses of 10 grams or more in one sitting. From my own personal use, I usually experience slight nausea when I take more that 10 grams of creatine in one dose. For that reason, I will split up my intake of creatine into 5 grams servings spread throughout the day.
Having said that, a few words of caution. Since there is no documented evidence on any serious long term side effects associated with creatine use, you should use good judgement regarding your creatine use. Too much of anything will be bad for you, so remember, keep your creatine dosage to an acceptable level.