Creatine And Gaining Muscle: 4 Best Ways How

Loads of people in the workout world love creatine and gaining muscle. It’s super popular for boosting brawn, strength, and how much power you can pack. Those sports enthusiasts munch on it. But some folks are stressing over whether it can make your hair take a hike.

RambodFit will dive into what creatine and gaining muscle does, how it’s good for bulking up muscles, and if it’s a baldness baddy.

So, What’s Creatine Anyway?

You find creatine in muscle cells, where it makes energy when you’re working out super hard. Your skeletal muscles hold onto 95% of your body’s creatine, but you’ve also got some in your brain, liver, and kidneys. Do you want to grab some from what you eat? Chow down on some red meat and seafood, or you could go for a supplement if that’s your thing.

Now, when folks talk about creatine and gaining muscle, they’re yakking about this type called monohydrate. People have looked into it a lot because it’s pretty good at pumping up how well you do in sports and building muscle.

How Creatine Makes Your Muscles Bigger

1. Gives More ATP Power

Cells use Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as their main energy source. When you do stuff like lift weights that require a quick burst of power, your ATP gets used up fast. Creatine jumps in and refills your ATP stores. This means you can exercise harder and longer, which beefs up your muscles after a while.

2. Makes muscles build more protein

So, creatine does this cool thing by pumping up the way your muscles make new protein, which means repairing and getting bulkier post-workout. The research is pretty clear—if you mix up slugging creatine with resistance exercises, you’ll pack on more lean muscle than just sweating it out solo.

3. Puffs up muscles with water

Adding creatine to your routine also shoves more water into your muscles. This is a good thing ’cause it makes them swell up a bit, which is part of getting ripped.

Creatine pulls water into your muscles, making them swell up a bit. This swelling, or “cell volumization,” could help muscles grow. It sends signals to build muscle and helps prevent muscle from breaking down.

4. Boosts Recovery

Creatine is nifty because it cuts down on muscle damage and soreness. That way, athletes can bounce back quicker after a workout and get back to training harder and more often.

Does Creatine and Gaining Muscle Make Your Hair Fall Out?

So, there’s this big question of whether creatine and gaining muscle can make you lose your hair. Some folks got worried because of a 2009 study where rugby dudes took creatine and then had more dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in them. DHT is the hormone that has something to do with guys losing their hair.

Grasping DHT’s Role in Going Bald

So, DHT comes from testosterone, and it’s super important when we talk about androgenetic alopecia. That’s the scientific name for when you lose hair ’cause it’s in your genes. When there’s a bunch of DHT hanging around, it can make hair follicles teeny-tiny, and that means your hair gets thin and might just peace out if your body is wired that way.

Digging Into What Studies Show

• That 2009 study is interesting — it spotted a 56% rise in DHT levels with people taking creatine for three weeks. But keep in mind, it was a pretty tiny group of folks, just 20. Plus, nobody else has backed up what they found yet.
• Research on creatine doesn’t mention hair loss as a negative effect. A 2021 overview saw no clear proof tying creatine to losing hair.
• Personal elements like your genes, how old you are, and what your hormones are doing, have way bigger roles in losing hair than creatine does.

Is Worrying Necessary?

Got baldness in the family tree? You might notice DHT levels messing with you more. But the info we’ve got now? It doesn’t point to creatine making your hair fall out in a big way.

Creatine’s Other Possible Downsides

Alright, so creatine’s mostly not trouble, but some peeps do talk about small issues they’ve got:

• Holding onto water (it might make your scale tick up a bit)
• If you don’t drink enough water and take too much, you could have “digestive issues.”
• Super rare, but if you’re not drinking enough water, you might get “muscle cramps.”

You can dodge most side effects by drinking plenty of water and not going overboard with the doses (stick to 3-5 grams each day).

Pumping Your Muscles Up with Creatine and Gaining Muscle

Give Loading a Shot or Not (Your Call)

To get their muscles loaded in a jiffy, some gym-goers will chug down 20 grams each day for a week (5-7 days), and then keep the party going with a steady 3-5 grams after that. But hey, if you want to skip this speedy step, just taking 3-5 grams will have you all stocked up in around a month (yep, 3-4 weeks).

Picking the Prime Time to Pop Creatine

Studies show, if you down some creatine after your workout, it’s kinda better for building muscle. But hey, the key thing is sticking with it, not when you gulp it down.

Handling Creatine

So creatine isn’t anything like steroids – you don’t need to take breaks. Keep on chugging it; it won’t stop working on you.

There are tons of researches on Pubmed about creatine and gaining muscle.

Conclusion

Alright, let’s get real – creatine and gaining muscle is legit. It’s safe, it does the job for bulking up muscles, ramping up strength, and making you a beast in your workouts. Now, I know there’s some talk about it causing hair to fall on your head ’cause of this one study linking creatine with DHT. But for real, the big picture doesn’t back that up.

So, hey, if balding runs in your family, just keep an eye on your mane while you’re on creatine. But don’t freak out and miss out on this supplement that’s got a ton of research behind it.

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