Beginner Takes CREATINE for 30 Days (RESULTS & SIDE EFFECTS)

Creatine is a well known supplement for making you bigger, stronger, ad more athletic. But what does a creatine 30 days transformation look like? What happens from taking creatine before and after 30 days? What are the creatine benefits and how should you take creatine for the best results? What about creatine and hair loss? Well in today's video we're putting to test on a beginner - Raza. He'll be taking creatine for 30 days and we'll monitor his weight, muscle size, and strength to see just how much creatine helps, or hurts him.

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So when you first start taking creatine, it won’t work right away. You actually won’t experience any benefit until you reach what’s known as full saturation. This is the point when your muscles creatine stores are completely full.

Typically, if you take one 5 gram scoop of creatine a day, this you can reach full saturation in about 3 weeks. But you can experience the benefits faster, in as little as a week, if you use what’s known as a loading protocol. This involves taking 20 grams of creatine every day for a week. However, for some individuals, ingesting this much creatine at once can cause stomach discomfort.

To soothe Raza’s stomach pains, we spaced out his servings throughout the day and also fully dissolved each dose with water instead of dry scooping it. We also made sure he stopped taking it with his pre-workout or any caffeine.There is not only some evidence suggesting that taking caffeine with creatine may make it less effective, but it also seems to greatly increase the odds of stomach discomfort. Making these fixes seemed to do the trick.

Alright so after the 7 days of loading, by now the creatine should be fully saturated in your muscles and is when it’ll start working. This is when you should scale back your dose to just 5 grams per day to simply maintain your elevated creatine stores. However, not everyone responds to creatine. In fact, it’s estimated that about 20-30% of people are non-responders. So once you do reach full saturation, there’s a few benefits and side effects you’ll want to look out for to tell if it’s working.

So when creatine is initially taken into a muscle cell, it also draws water into that cell and often causes a slight spike in your bodyweight as a result. On average research seems to show around a 1-3 lb increase in bodyweight before it stabilizes. Although this may sound like a bad thing especially if you’re on a diet, this water retention can make your muscles look and feel a lot fuller and is a sign that the supplement is working.

Throughout the challenge Raza was also concerned about creatine and hair loss. Why is hair loss a popular concern when it comes to creatine? Well this goes back to a study published back in 2010. Researchers took 20 rugby players and split them into a placebo group or a creatine group where they followed the loading phase for 7 days and then dropped down to maintenance afterwards. Throughout this period, researchers measured what’s known as DHT, a hormone known to contribute to male pattern baldness and hair loss in those who are genetically predisposed to it. So what happened? Well, the creatine group actually experienced a significant increase in their DHT levels by about 56% after the loading phase, which then reduced down to a 40% increase during the maintenance phase.

What does this mean?

Well first of all, the creatine group had lower than average DHT levels to begin with, and the increase they experienced was still within normal levels. Also, no other study has yet to replicate the results.

So I honestly think it’s not a concern, but we will keep an eye on Raza’s head of hair and see if we notice any difference.

But if you’re a responder to creatine, you should notice a slight strength boost across most of your exercises. In fact, a meta-analysis reviewing 22 creatine studies found that on average, trained lifters can expect roughly an 8% boost in strength and 14% boost in number of reps performed. Less experienced lifters like Raza however seem to reap larger benefits, with one study showing an average strength increase of 30% in untrained individuals.

Now Raza’s been able to increase almost all his exercises by 5 lbs or so as well as do a couple more reps, which seems to align with the research.

But in addition to the strength benefits, one study surveying 52 NCAA athletes found that 81% of them reported faster recovery from their training after taking creatine.

95% of supplements are junk. But creatine is an exception. It’s natural, safe and as you saw with Raza, can make a noticeable difference if you’re a responder to it. But, just always keep in mind proper nutrition and hard training will do A LOT more than taking any supplement will.

[warrenhenning]

The biggest effect I noticed was that I could recover from leg day better. I went from being almost unable to use the stairs in my house to just being very sore.

[dougsmith]

I’m 50 and just started taking Creatine after not taking in the last 15 years. In 5 weeks my bench press went from 130 to 155 so yes, pretty impressed.

[OnneWierda]

He forgot to mention the important fact that the 30% ''non-responders'' are actually lucky and have naturally high creatine levels to begin with..

[landturtle]

For me the biggest benefit I noticed about creatine is how fast I recover and also how I get less fatigued while working out, also the pump is a little better but that's most likely because of the water weight. Like you see in the video creatine is not for everyone so make sure you pay attention to how your body responds.

[fedfed]

>"my stomach hurts because of creatine"
>Proceeds to stuffing himself with greasy pizza, soda and ice cream

[SirPrizeWildRift]

I took 3g of creatine for 1 WEEK and i took a wet dump 3 times a day for 1 week, but after 8th - 9th day, my stomach bowel went to normal and I gained energy lifting

[eds]

Jeremy creates another addict, another lost soul. God save him.

[Joethecatholic]

I’m 46 and been training on and off the last 30 years. I didn’t do the load up but just took 3g daily and after 3 weeks I’m seeing improvement. I look more cut and definitely have more energy. Also haven’t experienced any stomach problems.

[RINGOMONJ]

I'm surprised how many pull-ups he can do with that build. Man is strong.

[DuelScreen]

To avoid side effects I began taking Creatine Monohydrate several weeks back at a 1g/day dose. I saw the gains that told me it was working. It seems that even a small dose can have a big impact. I definitely feel like I have experienced the same shoulder widening too. After 3 weeks I did not notice any negative side effects so I increased to 2g/day. I've not noticed any significant improvement after the dosage change so far but I'm going to continue taking it and paying attention to my body.

[prashantsaund]

Convey our gratitude to Raza for participating in this program & wish him a happy married life ahead 👍

[Jakezimms]

Just got done with week 3.. love the results and I didn’t have any stomach issues. I play tennis and I’ve noticed a huge difference in my explosiveness on the court.

[Royinszki]

"I gained x pounds in a week and i got surprised" you were eating fucking pizzas and ice cream dude

[julianyc]

Love how you put the claims to the scientific test with real people, and how you always tell both the good and the bad.

[zants_]

Regarding hair loss concerns:

Whether true or not, I feel like the important piece of information that's often glossed over from that study and from anecdotal claims is the fact that it ACCELERATES SOMETHING THAT WAS ALREADY GOING TO HAPPEN, so you should address the actual problem rather than worrying about the possible cause of it. Creatine is the red herring distracting people, the real bogeyman is the hair loss itself.

I'm now in my 30s, with a noticeably receded hairline. It started probably around age 24, perhaps coincidentally when I started working out and supplementing with creatine, but wasn't noticeable to anyone except myself (I could see the changes in the mirror each day since I had a freckle right on my hairline, so it was really obvious when the hairline changed). I was on-again, off-again with my workouts, doing roughly 3 month stints each time, and so was my hairline slowly moving back and forward every few months by the tiniest amounts. Even before taking creatine, I had read about the possibility of its impact on hair, but at that time I wasn't sure if I would even be impacted by male pattern baldness (looking at the hairlines on both sides of the family, it looked like a 60/40 scenario in favor of my hair being ok, and I also got a bit more confidence from the fact that up to that point I had zero indication that my hairline had moved at all - compared to other people I knew where their hairline had at least done *something* [no matter how small] by their low-to-mid 20s to give them a nod that they were going to experience it eventually). Further, each time the topic was brought up, people in comments would bring up the valid points that creatine was the most researched supplement and only that one (possibly faulty) bit of research had ever shown this, so probability was in your favor that your hair would be fine. Despite how unlikely it was, each time I took creatine the receding hairline became a lot more apparent, and when I would stop taking it the hairline would very slowly come back over the course of months. I got lulled further into a sense of security; I would tell myself "well, *if* creatine is causing this, at least I know from my experience now that it'll grow back each time that I stop." That was until around age 27; that was when my hair would occasionally *not* bounce back to its original hairline (obvious by my freckle) no matter how much time passed. And by age 28, there was no denying it - other people could now see it. Either it was pure coincidence that my hair receded each time around the time that I would take creatine (which is totally possible and honestly the most likely a scenario given research) or creatine did play a part in it (also possible despite how unlikely), but honestly it actually doesn't really matter what role creatine did or didn't play in it because I should have instead just been addressing the hair problem itself! (Admittedly, at the time, I didn't even know there were products to use for this, I thought it just happened and I had to swallow it or it wouldn't happen; I *wish* there hadn't been such a stigma around the topic of taking products for balding back then [which has improved since, but we're still not being open enough about it to make it obvious to the people that need to know that it's ok to use these products].)

So, regardless of whether creatine accelerates it, and honestly regardless of whether you ever take creatine at all, if male pattern baldness is a concern to you then you should be doing something preventative NOW (or at least the instant it starts becoming apparent) to make sure that it simply doesn't happen to begin with (e.g. finasteride and other medicines). Maybe, had it not been for creatine, I would have followed the average trajectory of people experiencing male pattern baldness and instead experienced it in my early-to-mid 30s, but that still means I was going to experience it! And so, the fact of the matter is, if it's going to happen to you then it's going to happen to you, so what does it matter *when* it happens if you don't do anything about it? Take creatine or don't take creatine, but at least take something to remedy your hair the instant you need to if that's something that worries you.

[russv.winkle]

44 y/o taking creatine for 4 months and consider myself an advanced lifter. I did not do a loading phase, just 5g per day and it was very hard on the stomach! Took me weeks to get that sorted out and ended up lowering the dose to 3g per day to ease the BM issue. I did gain weight in that time but never felt bloated. The biggest benefit I noticed is bench went up and achieved new PRs. So I decided to continue taking 3g creatine daily going forward. If you are already into training it can improve your performance but it is not a miracle supplement that will suddenly make you looked jacked.

[rajasohaibabdullah]

Hey Jeremy please make a detailed video on what nutrients our body needs in a day and on supplements like ashwagandha fish oils e.t.c please

[witchofthewildwood]

I’ve been taking creatine for a few days and already I’ve noticed my recovery is much better, almost to the point where I’m wondering if I’m still working out as hard as usual. I’m excited to keep using it.

[camilejones]

Great storytelling and graphics. I honestly was going to fast forward to the ends but kept watching throughout

[njmenaceify]

ive taken creatine off and on over the years and never noticed a difference. reading all these comments makes me feel like i need to try again.