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First and foremost thing that you must keep in mind is – there is no single creatine dosage that is right for everyone. The creatine dosage routine that you select all depends on your body, your daily routine and needs. It all depends on your body’s weight, your body fat percentage, fitness goals that your are aiming, and the type and intensity of training that you are performing. Creatine dosage should be adjusted according to your individual needs, or as advised by your health or nutritional practitioner.
What is the recommended dosage for Creatine Monohydrate?
The typical dosage for pure creatine monohydrate is approximately 10-30 grams/day for a normal man. But there are many creatine products coming in the market nowadays. So, your creatine dosage depends on the type of creatine monohydrate supplement you are taking. It is always recommended to take the dosage as recommended on the product label. You must also read the directions to take creatine as written on the bottle.
Creatine Dosage Instructions
Your creatine dosage should be divided into 3 phases namely loading phase, maintenance phase and wash out phase.
Loading Phase: Most of the manufacture’s and health practitioners recommend a loading dose till at least 5 days before you start to take creatine so that your muscles completely saturate with creatine. This loading dose ranges no more than 20 to 30 grams per day, or you can also calculate the dose otherwise – according to your body weight (you should take around 0.3 grams of creatine/kilogram of your body weight). This dosage should be divided into 3 to 4 daily dosages.
During the loading phase, it is very important to eat lots of carbohydrates because this will help you to utilize most of the creatine that you eat, otherwise much of creatine will be just wasted and just expelled out during excretion and urine.
If you are preparing yourself for an athletic event then you should start taking creatine several weeks before that athletic event has to occur.
Maintenance Phase: After the initial loading phase, here comes the maintenance phase. A maintenance dose of 2 – 5 grams of creatine per day is recommended which is required for the maintenance of the level of saturation within the muscles. The maintenance dosage is just needed to replace the amount of creatine that has degraded the whole day.
Most of the doctors recommend that the maintenance phase should last for no more than 1 month. Normally, for most of the weight lifters after 1 month there are no extra benefits of taking creatine. After 1 month all the creatine you eat just goes waste. The weight and muscle benefits which you have gained in that 1 month can be easily maintained through training. Many people do cycling i.e. they creatine for 1 month, then going off for several months, and then again start taking it back. Right now, nobody is sure how long is it safe to take it.
Wash Out Phase: After the loading and maintenance phases are over, wash out phase is recommended. Wash out phase is recommended so that your body recovers from the abnormally high creatine levels often associated with creatine supplementation. Most sport practitioners advice a wash out phase of 1 month.
Is Loading Phase Really Required?
A loading phase is not necessarily required. You can just start with the maintenance phase, skipping the loading phase. But, if you want your muscle gains fast then we will surely recommend you a loading phase. Loading phase helps muscles get saturated with creatine faster. Through loading phase you will be able to get the results in just 2 weeks which otherwise with maintenance phase you will get in 4 weeks. If you don’t have any hurry to gain muscles then we will recommend you to start from maintenance phase only.
source: creatine-monohydrate.org
Tags: Creatine Dosage, Dosage Instructions
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 7:49 pm and is filed under NUTRITION.
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