Should You Cycle Creatine?
Creatine is one of the top muscle building supplements that people use to help them reach their goals faster. The main benefit that creatine is going to provide is enabling you to work harder in the gym by always ensuring that your creatine phosphate stores in the body (which are the main molecules that supply energy to the working muscles) are topped off. When these start to run low, that’s when you’re really going to notice fatigue is starting to set in during your workouts.
One question many people have with regards to creatine however is whether it should be cycled.
With many supplements, cycling them proves to be very important since you don’t want the body to get used to the supplement for a given period of time, making it less than effective. With a few other supplements, a big reason for cycling it is because it can start to really wear on the body over time, running down your CNS.
Since creatine is a supplement that is essentially just replenishing a molecule that the body does get from food (most people will not get it in large enough proportions from food to make a difference however), it does not pose the risk of the body getting far too used to it.
Instead, what would happen is if you simply stopped using it, you wouldn’t have as high of creatine phosphate stores in the muscle cells, so fatigue may start to set in.
For this reason, cycling creatine is not necessary if you would prefer not to. If you were to take a break from your training and not perform any high intensity exercise (which is what relies on creatine phosphate), then it would make sense to stop taking it.
If you’re continually working out hard though, then it will be in your best interest to maintain your intake of it.
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