Creatine: Helpful Or Harmful?

A popular, if not the most popular, ergogrenic aid in the 1990’s still to this day is creatine (Brown, 2001). A surge in creatine usage began in 1992, when Harris showed that oral supplementation with high doses of creatine resulted in a twenty percent increase in skeletal muscle creatine concentration (Juhn, 1999). Creatine aids the creating phosphate system, which helps regenerate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) during short periods of exercise (Brown, 2001). The usage of creatine is not restricted at all; the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allow participants to use creatine (Juhn, 1999).

“Creatine is not an amino acid, but a nitrogen containing compound known as an amine,” (Williams, 2002). There are two types of creatine free creatine an

d phosphocreatine (Juhn, 1999). Creatine is made in the kidneys, liver, and pancreas at one to two g/day (Juhn, 1999). Creatine also comes in the food we eat such as meats (Williams, 2002). Both types play an important role in anaerobic adenosine triphosphate (ATP) (Juhn, 1999). Creatine is combined in the muscle with phosphate to produce phosphocreatine, a high-energy phosphagen in the ATP-PC energy system (Williams, 2002). This energy is stored for short Explosive exercise (Kreider, 1998).

The creatine phosphate system is used for short bursts of energy that last one to ten seconds (Brown, 2001). Many studies have demonstrated approximately a twenty percent increase in total creatine stores in subjects fed twenty grams of creatine per day for several days (Jenkins). Other research has investigated the effect of creatine supplementation on short-term, maximal exercise takes of less than thirty seconds, those highly dependent on the ATP-PCr energy system (Williams, 2002). The speed or power output in sprints -- all-out bursts of lasting a few seconds to several minutes -- is enhanced, typically by five to eight percent (Kreider, 1998). Sprinters who took creatine significantly increased their peak and average sprint power output compared to a group taking an inactive placebo (Mehlberg, 2000). NCAA division 1A footbal

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