When I started this channel a year ago, I set out with a very distinct purpose. To dispel misinformation regarding health and training, the same misinformation which I often fell victim to when I began caring more about my health and strength.

The first time I heard the mention of creatine, I wasn’t quite sure what it was, how it worked, or if it was even safe. Setting out to understand whether it was safe, led me to have to understand how it works on a biological level, and what I found out ended up being pretty incredible, it really changed my perspective on this supplement. As more and more people began requesting a video on it in the comments, I knew that the time had come to tackle one of the most misunderstood supplements in the fitness industry. Creatine.

First a quick refresher

To understand how creatine works, you need to understand why exactly it is that your 1 rep max less than your 10 rep max?

One of the major reasons is throughout a set, your muscles may seem to lose strength, but what they are really losing is energy. While we rest between sets most of this energy comes back to us.

Our muscles get their energy from a molecule called ATP. Adenosine TRIphosphate.
Tri phosphate for the three phosphate molecules attached to it.

When the third phosphate on the chain gets released, a burst of energy is given off, this is what powers a muscle contraction.

Your muscles begin a set filled to max capacity with ATP. The problem is ATP is an unstable molecule, so your muscles can only store a limited amount.

Lets see what happens when you hit that first rep.

BOOM you explode, this is enough stored energy to cover the first few seconds of a sprint, or get you at least a few seconds into that big 1RM.

1,2,3

Now what… we’ve done three seconds and we are out of power already? Well not so fast, because your body has a trick up its sleeve.

When your body uses an ATP it only uses the third phosphate in the chain, so there should still be something left over right?

There is, adenosine diphosphate.

Without that third phosphate though, they are pretty useless… and that’s where something pretty incredible happens… because your body has planned for this,

Embedded in your DNA is a gene, an instruction to your cells to produce an enzyme, that enzyme is called creatine kinase. Enzymes exist in cells and facilitate some sort of cellular reaction, think of an enzyme like a middle man.

But what is it connecting?

Well...

Stored in your muscles and ready to be deployed at a moments notice is another molecule, creatine phosphate.

These molecules were sent here by your liver and are holding onto something just for this moment, their own phosphate.

And this is their moment to use it, in an instant they activate, rapidly binding with the ADP molecules, giving up their phosphate. [connecting sound] Reviving those ADPs into fresh ATP which can continue powering your muscles.

This is why your 4 rep max is still around 90% of your 1RM , this creatine phosphate has managed to take an initial supply of ATP, and recycle it to last nearly 10 seconds.

As an interesting aside, studies have found that baseline creatine kinase levels are higher in African Americans than in whites, so if you’re african american, you can enjoy an explosive advantage there.

But the real limiting factor isn’t the number of creatine kinase connectors, they need something to connect. So the true limiting factor is the creatine phosphate supply, when it runs out, your body is forced to notch down to its next most powerful energy system, the anaerobic system, which although good, cant produce the same amount of energy as this phosphagen system, that's why your 12 rep max weight is so much less than your 3 rep max weight.

So you see, creatine kinase enzymes are found naturally in our cells, along with a supply of creatine phosphate to revive those ADPs into fresh energy. This is our bodies own system. The issue becomes that your muscles are rarely filled to their creatine phosphate capacity.

When you ingest a creatine monohydrate supplement, your body turns it into create phosphate and shuttles it into these vacant spaces. Allowing your bodies energy reviving trick to be used to its full ability.

It’s no wonder then that by the early 90s, Olympic athletes from around the world were taking this supplement.

SOME OF THE STUDIES:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18...