It's hard to find an athlete who doesn't use creatine. However, this supplement has two unpleasant properties. Be sure to check them out. Creatine has been actively used by athletes for many years. This substance is a nitrogen-containing carboxylic acid. Creatine takes the most active part in the energy exchange of the cells of the nervous system and muscles. For athletes, the most important property of the substance is the ability of creatine to supply muscle tissue with energy, which is needed in large quantities during intense training.
Note that creatine was discovered more than two centuries ago, but it was widely used in sports only a few decades ago. However, close attention to creatine on the part of scientists was shown only after several deaths with American wrestlers. After their death, pathologists were able to identify a high concentration of creatine in the body.
After numerous studies, creatine was again actively used and there were no more deaths. In addition, the fact should be noted. That scientists could not establish the dose of a substance that could lead to the manifestation of side effects that pose a danger to the body. As a result, the deaths that occurred could not be associated with their use of creatine.
Of course, the use of the supplement is very beneficial for athletes. Now we will not focus on the mechanisms of its work, but only recall that creatine can significantly increase strength performance. It is used not only in strength sports disciplines, but also in games. This is due to its ability to increase the energy potential of the body during explosive physical exertion. However, there are two negative aspects that can be experienced when using the supplement. Today we are going to talk about the double dangers of creatine in bodybuilding.
Negative points when using creatine
The first such factor should be considered fluid retention in the body. Creatine monohydrate is good in almost everything, but it also retains liquid quite strongly. If the quality of the gained muscle mass is not of fundamental importance to you, then this property of the substance may even be positive. However, most bodybuilders try to gain only high-quality mass, and in this case, the ability to retain fluid, of course, can no longer be a positive property.
In addition, creatine increases strength, which can be considered a positive point. However, the growth of strength occurs quickly enough and the muscles often do not keep up with this pace. As a result, this can lead to rupture of muscle tissue. If you ask experienced athletes about this, they will confirm this fact. In this case, the strength increases even without the use of anabolic steroids. If you increase the load at a rapid pace, you risk getting quite serious muscle damage. Again, creatine is very good for athletes and should of course be used. But at the same time, you must remember that it is necessary to strengthen the ligamentous-articular apparatus and tendons. Your strength indicators increase rapidly, but the body does not have time to adapt to fast-growing loads. As a result, the fibers do not acquire the necessary elasticity to respond to them. At some point, they may simply not stand it and the result will be injury.
You probably already understood that all these unpleasant moments can be easily eliminated. With regard to water retention in the body, some athletes use other forms of creatine, such as ethyl ester, instead of monohydrate. Perhaps this form of the substance is somewhat inferior to monohydrate in efficiency, but the quality of your muscles will not deteriorate.
It is even easier to solve the problem of a rapid increase in strength indicators, or rather an increase in the risk of injury. You just don't have to rapidly progress the load. It takes time for the ligaments and tendons to adapt, and the muscle fibers become more elastic. After that, they will be able to carry heavy loads and you can increase the working weight again. It is important to do this gradually.
That's the whole danger of creatine in bodybuilding. The substance has been studied well enough to be able to speak about the absence of other side effects. Actually, this can be said about the long-term experience of using creatine by a large number of athletes. In addition to the two negative points described today, there can be no other claims to creatine.
You will learn about what creatine is and how to take it correctly from this video:
