Dr. Darren Candow

The idea was that it would get into the blood, maintain peak or plateauing plasma levels, and hopefully you can retain more than some being excreted as creatinine.

The thought was a super mega bolus dose of maybe 20 grams.

Now there's new evidence it can get in the brain, but there's logic like some of that would be cleared from the kidneys because the muscle may not be able to take that in all at once.

So dosing studies need to be really done.

So that's a two-part answer, I think, from a timing perspective and cycling.

So from a timing perspective, unlike caffeine, we don't think the timing really plays a major role.

There is one area that I would just recommend.

It's post-exercise or pre-exercise.

And the reason for that is that we think blood flow or transport kinetics is turned on with muscle contraction.

So if you want to take creatine within an hour before your workout or I drink five grams during my workout or right after, that seems like a very viable time.

But for the viewers, the timing seems to be irrelevant.

But that begs the question, what about cycling?

So if you've been taking creatine for maybe two months, three months, it's very likely your muscle stores are so saturated that when you're consuming the extra creatine that you would just be excreting it.

So some people say, hey, I don't want to do that.

I don't want to waste my money.

I'm going to cycle it.

I now argue you should take it on a daily basis because of the emergence of like, okay, I'm okay with the muscle being full.

If someone's going down the toilet in urination, that's okay.

But now I'm hoping our bone is taking in some, our brain is taking in some.

So we used to be in the camp where you just need creatine on the days you work out.