Creatine is one of the most popular supplements for building muscle and supporting recovery after strength training workouts.
However, choosing the best creatine supplement has become increasingly challenging because many different types of creatine supplements are available.
What type of creatine is best for building muscle? Keep reading to find out!
How Does Creatine Promote Muscle Growth?
There are several ways in which creatine supplements can enhance muscle growth.
Muscle Energy
Creatine is a molecule involved in the ATP-PC system.
ATP is the molecule responsible for energy in the cell while the PC stands for phosphocreatine.
This energy system produces usable energy for your muscle cells extremely rapidly, so it is ideal for maximum-intensity, high-velocity, high-power exercise such as lifting heavy weights or sprinting short distances.
Although the ATP-PC system produces energy quickly, creatine stores deplete rapidly, so it takes time for the muscles to “restock” with the necessary inputs before additional reps or sets can be performed with the same intensity.
The good news is that studies suggest that creatine supplements can indeed increase muscle stores of creatine, enabling you to lift heavy weights or perform high-intensity exercise for more sets in a workout.
Lift Heavier and More Reps
If you have more creatine in your system, your muscles will recover and replenish the ATP-PC system more times during a workout before exhausting available creatine.
Intra Muscle Water Retention
Creatine is osmotically active. This means that it pulls water into the muscle cells.
Increasing the fluid volume of your muscle fibers makes them appear fuller, plumper, and ultimately larger.
Better hydration of your muscles can also improve their functional performance.
Creatine HCL vs Monohydrate: Which is Better for Muscle Growth
There are several different types of creatine formulations so choosing the best creatine supplement can be confusing.
The two most common forms of creatine are creatine monohydrate and creatine HCL.
To date, creatine monohydrate supplements have been studied much more thoroughly than any of the other types of creatine, including creatine HCL.
This means that most of the evidence-based benefits of creatine and the recommended dosage instructions are based on creatine monohydrate supplements.
However, most nutritionists and researchers believe that creatine HCL supplements should provide the same benefits and relative efficacy as creatine monohydrate.
With creatine monohydrate, one water molecule is bonded to creatine. In contrast, creatine HCl, also known as creatine hydrochloride, does not have this water molecule attached.
This means that creatine HCL can potentially be more potent than creatine monohydrate.
Because some athletes experience side effects with high doses of creatine, creatine HCL can potentially be an attractive alternative if lower doses can provide similar results.
However, to date, the majority of studies with creatine HCL have been performed with animals, so there is still not enough information to conclusively determine if creatine HCL is better with them.
Does Creatine Make You Bloated?
Bloating is one of the most common creatine side effects cited by athletes.
Creatine increases water retention—or total body water—which can make you feel bloated and can temporarily increase your weight.
Typically, bloating with creatine is worse during the loading phase because the dosage is high.
Symptoms of bloating should resolve once creatine intake is decreased to 5 to 10 g per day.
To decrease bloating from creatine, consider skipping the loading phase altogether.
Also, make sure that you drink plenty of water and choose creatine supplements that do not contain fillers such as artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, or binders.
Does Creatine Make You Gain Weight?
Creatine can cause weight gain.
As mentioned, creatine causes the cells to take up more water, which means that less water is excreted from the body.
This increases the bulk or size of your muscles temporarily as well as your weight on the scale.
However, it's important to remember that true weight gain, or fat gain, requires a caloric surplus.
You may experience an increase in body weight when you first start taking creatine supplements due to water weight, but unless you are consuming more calories than you are burning, you are not increasing body fat with creatine.
Over time, creatine can increase your lean body mass.
How Long Does it Take for Creatine to Work?
For most individuals, results from creatine supplementation can be seen in a matter of a couple of weeks (generally 7 to 28 days).
However, the timing and extent of your results will depend on your body composition, dosage, type of creatine you are taking, workout regimen, overall diet, and your personal biochemistry.
TL;DR: Which Creatine is Best for Muscle Growth?
Overall, the best creatine supplements for muscle growth are clean, meaning they do not contain fillers, artificial sweeteners, or added ingredients.
Creatine monohydrate is the most well-researched form of creatine, though other types of creatine likely produce similar results.