If you’re new to the gym you might be wondering if you should take creatine. You might also be wondering if creatine is safe to take. Heck, you might be wondering how to take creatine! Well the GYMCADDY Team is here to answer your questions and tell you which is the best creatine to buy. As always, links will be provided for products mentioned in this post for easy pick up from Amazon. 

First off, what is the best creatine to buy you might asking. Well to keep things simple and affordable we always recommend Creatine Monohydrate to all of our clients. Creatine Monohydrate is the simplest form of creatine for sale and its also naturally found in proteins like red meats and poultry. Unfortunately, Creatine Monohydrate is found in such low quantities in red meats and poultry its unrealistic to get a proper dosage of the stuff from just eating meat. And yes, there are more expensive, refined, and processed creatines on sale but after trying them we've found them to be no better than your simple Creatine Monohydrate. Some great options for creatine monohydrate come from Optimum Nutrition and Dymatize.

So what does creatine do you might be asking. Well creatine essentially will help increase your strength and endurance while working out. It will also help you recover and help ease any soreness you might get after an especially hard workout. Scientifically, creatine helps increase the amount of ADP (Adenosine Diphosphate) stored in your muscles so they can produce more ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) when you workout. 

Creatine is also the must researched supplement and its found to be perfectly safe to use for both adult males and females. The only side effect of taking creatine is just the retention of water in your muscles, which really isn't a problem at all. Just in keep in mind, if you decide to stop taking creatine after a few months of using it, your strength and endurance will rapidly decline afterwards. But don't worry, you can regain your lost strength if you simple start creatine again. Its safe to use creatine continuously, theres no need to cycle the supplement as some myths my lead you to believe. And no, taking creatine will wont lead to weight gain. 

So you might be wondering how to take creatine right about now. Bro-Science dictates that you should first do a “Loading Phase” when you first start taking creatine so that your muscles can get saturated in the stuff. After training hundreds of clients and taking creatine ourselves, the GYMCADDY team has found that a loading phase isn't really needed. For most people under 200 pounds its recommended they take just 5 grams of creatine per day. If you way a little more then you should up the daily dosage to 7 grams per day. Anything over 20 grams per day will simply be expelled from your body through your urine. It also doesn't matter exactly when you take it, just as long as you take your creatine once a day with a source of carbs to help with absorption. So ideally with a meal. 

In conclusion, anyone thats serious about the gym should definitely take creatine monohydrate. Its perfectly safe to use and its proven to work. Both in the lab and in daily use by average Joes. You just have to take 5 grams a day and keep hydrated to enjoy the benefits of creatine.