Hacking Your Health
Hacking Your Health Podcast with Ben Canning and Dave Kennedy - Two guys setting out to hack body, mind, business and beyond. We are here to provide a single source, bullshit free guide to understanding your body and how you can live better, for longer.
Hacking Your Health
Why Creatine Is More Than Just a Gym Supplement // Ep 169
Creatine is a naturally occurring compound that offers benefits beyond muscle growth, including cognitive enhancement, heart health protection, and neuroprotective effects for long-term brain health. This powerful supplement works by increasing ATP production in your cells, creating a reserve of energy that helps with everything from workout performance to brain function.
• Creatine is produced naturally in the body (about 1g daily) and found in red meat and fish
• 90% of creatine is stored in muscles with 10% in the brain and testes
• Functions as phosphocreatine to help produce ATP, your body's cellular energy currency
• Traditional protocol includes 20g loading phase for two weeks followed by 5g daily maintenance
• Recent research suggests 10g daily may provide optimal cognitive and physical benefits
• Helps improve workout capacity by allowing more reps and faster recovery
• Offers neuroprotective benefits that may help prevent conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
• Improves short-term memory, focus, and can enhance cognition during sleep deprivation
• Supports cardiovascular health and may benefit those recovering from heart failure
• Contrary to myths, has been proven safe for kidneys by the National Kidney Disease Association
• Especially beneficial for vegetarians and vegans who don't get dietary creatine
• Water retention from creatine is intramuscular, actually enhancing muscle definition
• Benefits both men and women without causing unwanted "bulk" in female users
• One of the most researched supplements with minimal side effects
• Can be taken any time of day - consistency matters more than timing
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Yo, hey, what's up everybody. Welcome to Hacking Health Podcast. I'm your host, ben Cumming, with Dave Kennedy. Yo, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back.
Speaker 2:It's two weeks in a row. I think this is like three weeks in a row. I think that's reason why you're right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, I was actually thinking before we come on and uh, I'll just give myself a bit of credit here as I was doing my preparations. Um, it feels good to be more consistent with I agree podcast and number one, being able to have a conversation and catch up, but actually, like, put it, I actually on, I'll say this uh, I don't know if anybody would have noticed, but yesterday morning, tuesday morning, when it goes live 5 am my time I woke up and I was like, ah, but the podcast is like, oh shit, I haven't uploaded the last week's podcast yet, so I'm not back in the habit of uh, being sure to get it done but we haven't recorded. But anyway, what's on?
Speaker 2:I can't believe. You actually sent me a text message last night asking when I was going to be home from Houston if I was going to make the podcast or not, because I would miss the podcast. Man, come on, well, you were in Houston, I know, I know, I just didn't know when you were getting back. Flew back last night, man, ready for the podcast. I flew back late last night.
Speaker 1:Fair, fair, fair.
Speaker 2:What's going on, dude? Well, I just got back from Houston. I had a had a big deal out there to to go and win, but that was funny Cause I I get to the hotel and I'm usually really good at picking hotels, I'll like check the gyms out and everything, but like it was, it was such a quick like turnaround for abilities and stuff like that, and so I um just booked a nearest hotel deadlift, what's your capability? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's why I responded back 600 pound deadlift, and then uh, but uh I.
Speaker 2:I just booked the nearest hotel, that was closest to their location, and it was not a great hotel, um, to say the least. It was, you know, very old, kind of smelled, um, whatever. So I'm like maybe they'll have some, some weights or something. So I get down there and literally it goes with the 30 pound dumbbells and a bench, and that was it. I was like, okay, you know, like I'm going to go find somebody else somewhere else. I'm with this place called Fitness Connection and I didn't grasp how big this place was from the photos. It's like a. If you take like a planet fitness and times it by like 10, that would be like this place. If you take like a planet fitness and times it by like 10, that would be like this place I've never seen. It's like a warehouse Depot of like thousands of of pieces of gym equipment. I was really, and it was, I'll tell you, it was balls to the wall, busy, and I never had an issue finding a piece of equipment.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was. It was great, but I got an amazing lift in it. I might have found a new piece of equipment I want to order. So have you ever used the hoist machines? Yeah, yeah, yeah, helmy has those in the gym.
Speaker 1:What's that? Helmy has those in his gym.
Speaker 2:Does he so they actually move? Actually, I think I remember doing the row with Helmy that has a hoist, that actually moves. Yeah, yeah, Do you remember that one? The hoist machines. When you're doing like I was doing, lat pulldowns, the whole machine will kind of move you into the perfect position and give you a little bit more tension.
Speaker 1:Which helps you up if you don't know that it's going to happen Like you start pulling.
Speaker 2:When I first did it I was like, oh, shit, you know like what's going on here, and I made this like loud, like clanking sound, as I dropped it because I didn't know what was going on, did scare me a little bit, but but it was really great. I'll tell you, the lat pull down machine, um I, you know you it's, it's got the um it. It's so like they have a. What I loved about it on the instruction set is it said if you're, you know, below six foot, use these handles. If you're above six foot, use these handles. I was like, okay, and I could barely reach it and I had an amazing stretch of my lats and I literally did like two or three extra sets on it because they just felt so good and so I might get that lat pulldown machine.
Speaker 1:They are big machines though.
Speaker 2:They are really big machines.
Speaker 1:Like you're not going to be able to fit that in your gym.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I'm just going to. I'll just remove the bed from my bedroom and put that in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good yes.
Speaker 2:We'll figure out the weight problems later.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, problems later. Yeah yeah, hoists are good, for sure, um, but yes, definitely. It is a surprise whenever you sit on it and then start the movement and then you move to and you're like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:they also they also have one machine, too, that I really liked. Um, it's almost like a tonal, but an actual machine. It was a bicep curl machine seated you know, seated down, but it puts you in a, you know, in a, a stretch position, and it was ropes. So you're doing bicep curls with ropes on a weight stack, um, which I hadn't seen before. So it was, it was, uh, really good. I had a great, great, great workout, great back and bicep workout, so it was like probably one of the better ones I've had in a long time nice, good.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad that you made it to the gym, because that photo of the gym that you were in a the hotel was not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Someone put it on Twitter and I was like, no, no, this doesn't make any sense. He's like you can still go and get a workout. Doing one workout is better than no workout. I'm like, no man, not with that, it's not, it's really not. I'd probably be better with a rest day than using 30-pound dumbbells. I would literally have to sit there for like 45 minutes doing a row for like 300 sets, you know 300 reps to get you know any type of of of stimulus there. So I was like, nah, man, this ain't going to happen.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Good, well, you got it done either way no-transcript fine with me, I can. I can accommodate that I can change the number for you and then you can have to execute it on this side. I, uh, I think I moved into the cup four, five, five days ago what's your calories in?
Speaker 2:1600 oh my god, no way. Uh-uh, dude, that's brutal what the fuck?
Speaker 1:yeah, I know, and actually I was chatting to james about it and I made a mistake. Okay, I was like look, james, I'm just sick you definitely made a mistake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like I'm sick of this slow bullshit, I just want to fucking get it over with. And he was like text me back. Okay, right, let's change calories to 1600. And I was like whoa, what the like have I pissed you off? Like what the fuck? Um, but the cool thing was we were able to look back. Last time I did a cut and it was 1600 calories. That was 1700 calories he did the last time, but I was doing 240 minutes of cardio across the week, so let's have three hours, just over three hours. Four hours, yep lot anyway. So what do you want to do? And I was like we'll just stick with 1600 calories. That's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1:Um, but actually I am documented on twitter. So if you follow on twitter, it's pinned top of my profile of what I'm eating or what I'm not eating. Um, but I mean so far, so good. I've lost four pounds in the past five days, um, which I would imagines all water weight and just like a lack of food in my system, but moved into a new training block this week. Um, an additional session. So I'm running upper, lower, push pull and then arms, but I'm only allowed to do the arm session. If I do the other sessions. It's my bonus workout apparently. Um so yeah, so far so good.
Speaker 1:No, no rest days, so upper lower uh, it's upper lower rest, push, pull, arms rest.
Speaker 2:So two rest, five days and is the push pull, full body push, full body pull yeah, I just actually finished push there.
Speaker 1:So it was leg extension um leg extension leg press, pec, deck, dumbbell, chest press, smith machine, shoulder press, cable, lateral raise, long rope, tricep and hanging leg raise. And that was it. Gotta get those hanging leg raises in apparently yeah, it was good, it's good.
Speaker 1:Good on that. I'll keep you posted, um. But, like I said, I'm feeling good. I know that 1600 is low and for anybody listening, I would not recommend doing this. Do not try this at home. I'm a trained, seasoned professional at this. I know that I can handle 1600 calories. I know how to navigate my food. I can still get 200 grams of protein plus um. It is a relatively short space of time. I'm not promoting anybody should do this. I think the overarching thing for everybody should be something that is sustainable. Sometimes it's good to push yourself a little bit further and actually challenge the norm within that, and I do that with clients sometimes. So it's not. I'm doing 1,600 calories for a year. It's literally a six-week time frame, if even.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, good luck with that. Listen, I don't want to piss you off.
Speaker 1:So 1,600 is usually. You're the one with less calories. I'm up in there right now 1,600 calories.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I'm not saying 1,600 calories. You know like that's quite a bit. One thing I have found helping on the deficit side is I don't eat breakfast at all anymore.
Speaker 1:I will do a protein shake after my workout, but like after that, I how I break my calories up and I've been perfectly fine with that uh, zero issues. Well, I will say, like we have both agreed, that we want this to make this, this fat loss phase, the product of this for you, the leanest that you've ever been. So there may be something that we need to do within that to to push the boundaries a little bit further. Um, and also big news on on the training side. I found last week I was procrastinating on my workouts and pushing them off because I was trying to get stuff done with work and I was pushing them off later, later and later. Uh, so I was sick my own bullshit on monday and on the group call everybody called me out.
Speaker 1:So I trained at 6 am yesterday morning and it was legs. Uh, I didn't die. Umi didn't hit it as much as I thought I would. I just got up. I actually took a tablespoon of honey with rock salt, which is the OG I would say pre-workout meal, if you want to call it a meal and it actually helped a lot, just like the sort of instant sugar, and then obviously having the salt to balance electrolytes. So it was good, absolutely fine. Did about 60, 70 minutes of training and then did 20 minutes of cardio and got on with my day. So, as someone who has literally said for the past 12 years that there's no way I've ever trained in the morning, I might, I might convert because I feel like it just makes my day.
Speaker 2:I know there's a lot of, lots of stuff going on. I don't even know how to have it, even like like firstly just dropped to 1600 calories a day, and now you're talking about working on the mornings like man. Yes, a whole different bench I'm having an identity crisis.
Speaker 1:Okay, just you're getting, you're getting it live, um, but no, I was. I was feeling like I was putting it off, putting it off and then I was like rushing it, whereas like, if I get up and I don't start work, I'm not trying to take myself out of a task and I just know that I don't have a distraction throughout the rest of the day and saying that I mean, I trained this afternoon here and it was fine. So maybe a little bit of mix and both depending on what's going on.
Speaker 2:Well, I have actually started switching a little bit of my protocol as well. I've been lifting more in the afternoons, which I enjoy more versus the mornings, and I actually might have gotten rid of the gushers, the fruit. I found this intro workout called Leg Day. It's by NutriBio. You ever seen it before? No, it's actually interesting. So it's 100 120 calories, but it's got, you know, 30 grams of of carbs in it, um, so it has cluxer, uh. It has dextrin in it, so dextrose, um, that is used for, um, you know, quick energy. It has full uh amino acids, so bcas, and also a bunch of electrolyte and hydration stuff, so taurine, coconut water, pink Himalaya salt, magnesium. That's been what's that? That?
Speaker 1:sounds pretty heavily stacked.
Speaker 2:It is. It is the recipe on it I was actually really impressed with and I've been using that as my pre-slash-intro workout. Well, my intro workout, not my pre-workout. I use that as I'm kind of working out. It's called Leg Day by Nutrabio. I really like it. Tastes good too. They have a bunch of different flavors New York Punch I think I'm doing the peach mango right now.
Speaker 1:You know I'm a sucker for peach.
Speaker 2:Yes, just not pineapple, Just not pineapple.
Speaker 1:Not pineapple. Anyway, right Today we're here to talk about creatine. As promised, we're finally going to do the highly anticipated creatine podcast. I think we need to start with what the fuck creatine actually is, because we talk about it quite a lot, but what actually is it like as a, as a thing? What it is is something.
Speaker 1:Number one it's produced in your body. It's a combination of of three of the amino acids I'm going to fuck up the names of them or how to pronounce them, um, but essentially it is uh, glycine, arginine and methylene, which doesn't sound good, but they're amino acids that are produced naturally in your body. Your body produces about one gram of creatine per day and you do get some from like meats that you eat, so like red meat or fish, like fish and things like that. Um, but you don't get enough. So it is also a supplement, but it is producing active in your body, but we just supplement with more um. In terms of what it is for, uh, that's what we're going to delve into today, because I think up until probably recently, it was very much gym bros that just wanted to get an extra couple of reps in and get the additional gains. But I think there's a lot of research and studies out there to show that there is a lot more benefits to it than just a couple of additional bicep curls at the end of your workout.
Speaker 2:Yep. So like creatine when it first came out. I remember when it first came out it was like a big push. You know, back in the early 2000s when I was going through the military and you'd see a GNC creatine everywhere creatine, creatine, creatine, creatine and its claim was back then, based on the early data studies that we had was that the creatine that you had. It would shoot water into your muscles and allow you to recover faster and then build more muscle, right? So, in its basic sense, what they're saying is hey, creatine will put just a minimum amount of water weight into your muscles, which is a good thing, by the way, you want water in your muscles, ie blood and it will allow your muscles to recover faster when you go through your workouts, thus allowing you to do more and more workouts. Now, since then, we've had a number of data studies and creatine has been considered essentially the gold standard for enhancing the muscle building and recovery process, with many, many, many, many studies going into it.
Speaker 2:Now, one thing I want to do before I get into why that's kind of changing today and what we'll be talking about today, is that to understand how creatine works. So creatine is primarily I think it's like 90% is stored in your muscles, 10% is stored in your testes, in your brain, and so creatine is very big for brain development, for testicular endocrinology type stuff, for your testes as well as, obviously, for muscles. And what it does is it's stored in your muscles as what's called phosphocreatine, and phosphocreatine is basically a stored form of energy in your cells and helps your body produce more high energy molecules in the form of ATP or andesine triphosphate. So ATP is essentially the chemical reaction, the energy that we can use to produce out of our muscles and out of our body. It's the energy cells that we use on a cellular level to basically use energy.
Speaker 1:So the more phosphocrystalline, ATP is like electricity in your body.
Speaker 2:Yes, how your body works in terms of you're basically one big chemical battery, for lack of a better term, is how our bodies work, right, um, salt battery is kind of precise, um and so uh, with with higher levels of creatine, so phosphocreatine, in your muscles, what it it allows you to do is to have more energy, so ATP gets depleted over time as you use it, and the more phosphocreatine you have in your muscles, the longer you are able to actually continue that specific exercise or workout. Now, at the same time, there's other benefits, right? So the water aspect of things, as well as a few other areas. So that's the kind of the main purpose of creatine. So its claims as of today is, you know, boosted workload, so the ability to really increase your volume in a single training session. So thus increasing more volume, increasing more muscle mass, increasing longer term muscle growth. Improved cell signaling, so it gives the, the cells um more signaling to aided muscle repair. New muscle growth uh anabolic studies have been shown um, so increased igf-1 uh increases based on the data studies for increasing human growth hormone factor. Naturally, um cell hydration, so obviously the water content, protein breakdown, so increases total mass by reducing the muscle breakdown. So you're not inflicting as much damage on your muscles because it's able to repair faster and then lower my myostatin levels. So it can really actually help with the myostatins, which is basically inhibit, which could, if you have high elevated levels of protein myostatin. It can slow down or inhibit muscle growth. So it's creating a conducive environment for your muscles to grow. It's creating a conducive environment for your muscles to be able to perform faster and it's also creating an environment for your muscles to recover. It also has a lot of added benefits on cardiovascular health. There's been a number of studies that have shown reduced risk of atherosclerosis, of a lot of other heart-related issues, helps with blood pressure. It also helps with brain development as well.
Speaker 2:Now, where the latest data study comes into play and this is kind of a unique data study that hasn't been done before when they've done all of the data studies on creatine, what they've done, when they've done all of the data studies on creatine, what they've done is they've done what's called the loading phase and then they've done the maintenance phase of creatine.
Speaker 2:So the loading phase usually starts off with 20 grams of creatine for two weeks and what happens is it builds up essentially a reserve in your muscles, in your body, so that when you deplete your creatine levels, it can replenish those. And then your maintenance phase is five grams. So, after the two weeks of taking 20 grams per day per week for two weeks, you take five grams per day and that's your maintenance. You need to be consistent with it. You have to stay with the five grams, over and over and over again. Now, conversely, I want to say, if you don't do the loading phase and you just do five grams, you eventually build up enough creatine over a month's time time frame. So you're just speeding up the process by doing 20 grams a day for two weeks, versus a month or a month and I will say I have never done a loading phase ever.
Speaker 1:I'm not against, like I understand that and I and I I get the point and I like I'm not against it whatsoever, but I've never done it. I've always just went straight in with with five grams some.
Speaker 2:Some people have, uh, some GI issues with 20 grams, like some, some stomach discomfort with 20 grams. Five grams is perfectly fine, starting off with um and you know it's. It's one of those things that just takes a little bit longer for your system to build up. Now why it's important to understand why they've always said it increases your muscle mass is that when they do the 20 gram loading phase and the five gram loading phase or five grams or whatever they've seen a direct correlation to lean body mass increases with creatine versus those in the placebo groups that were not taking creatine. Now, if you look at lean body mass, it's very difficult to determine what is actually muscle and what is actually water, and so in the data studies, what they assumed was, yeah, there's probably some water as part of this weight, but also there has to be muscle being built as well. Based on the studies that they did With this latest study they did. They showed, if you take creatine with the loading phase prior, they had two groups one that didn't take any creatine, one that did and they did 20 gram loading phases and they did a five gram per day maintenance. Now, after the loading phase was done, they measured the body weights of both. And during this period of time, with the loading phases, they were not doing any resistance training whatsoever, no resistance training at all. And then they added the creatine and then they took the body weight and lean body mass scans of those two groups and what they showed was essentially all of the gains that were done from a lean body mass perspective was primarily water, not muscle, meaning that creatine didn't have a distinct impact on increasing the lean body mass of an individual during that period of time. In the study Now that was only with five grams. There's new data studies that are working right now upping that to 10, thinking that five maybe might not be enough and 10 will give you the benefits. Now they've also done data studies leveraging 10 grams and that seems to be kind of the sweet spot for when your brain gets the enhanced cognitive abilities with creatine. So what it's looking like from the data studies today is that you really need to be taking 10 grams, so two scoops typically, of creatine a day to get the benefits of the brain, cardiovascular health and potentially the muscle piece.
Speaker 2:Now I just want to put a caveat in here. We know creatine helps us with atp production. We know creatine helps us with recovery. So if we have increased energy in our ability to replenish energy in our muscles as we're doing exercises, thus increasing either strength or muscle volume during a workout, as well as the ability to recover faster To me, that is what creatine was sold upon when it first came out, and what I used creatine for in the first place was the benefits of recovery and the benefits of being able to push myself harder when I'm going to do workout, thus receiving the results of gaining more muscle mass over time because I'm leveraging creatine.
Speaker 2:So, to me, this data study, while it shows there might not be a substantial gain of what we thought of additional creatine, I think the estimates where you can gain roughly around 22% of additional lean body mass leveraging creatine per year which is huge, by the way that's a massive increase in muscle mass. We don't know what that number is at this point in time, based on those studies. So they're working on new studies to formulate this new way of looking at it. But one thing I can say is that I still highly, highly, highly highly recommend creatine as a staple supplement, along with vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids. Is kind of my three core supplements that I I heavily recommend um, and it's one of those things I will not change.
Speaker 1:The only thing I've changed is I've moved from five grams to 10 grams a day agree and I think before I sort of want to make a note of like who's for, who's not for, um, and then we can go through some like myths, because I know there are a lot of myths around it and I've said this for the, for my entire coaching career, and I think it's quite difficult and maybe maybe you're different and I think it's quite difficult to see truthfully is is it working or not? Because it's not that sort of like instant response and I feel like the only way to truly test that like taking trend, I wouldn't know anything about it.
Speaker 1:I think the only way to truly test that like taking trend wouldn't know anything about it I think the only way to truly test it would be to live the same year twice over exactly and one year take creatine and one year don't take creatine and see if there are any difference I I find it difficult to actually pinpoint. Okay, right, I actually do feel the benefits of it, um, but I'm in for it because of the studies and the things that are out there and everything that has been sort of documented and read, and I think the sort of cost to benefit ratio is something that I think that essentially everybody should be taking. So, from what we use it for in the gym perspective, I do feel like it is worthwhile having in your daily supplement stack. I think loading fees are not um, if you have it in your system and you're able to be consistent with it. It's something that the studies show and it is one of, if not the most studied and researched supplement on the market that you will get the benefit of it. In terms of the gains and for what it costs, like comparative to other supplements, it is relatively inexpensive. It's probably about $25, $30 for a tub that lasts what seems like six years.
Speaker 1:Um, I pull one up there and it's like 147 servings, which is obviously 100, 147 days. Um, so yeah, I think it's something everybody should take in, and whether you train or not, like again, I always sort of go back to like is this something that I would recommend, my mom, recommend my mom to take? And I think with this, yes, absolutely. Um, because of the benefits beyond just what's what's done in the gym. So who's it for? I would say everybody. Who's it not for? I think people who want a quick fix, who think they're going to take this thing and then the next day they're going to be fucking 20 times stronger, and it's not something like that. It's something that does take time to number one, for your body to absorb it, but actually to see the benefits of it, or at least see the potential benefits of it down the line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's going to be perfect. There's a couple of things that I want to hit on in the safety advocacy of creatine. One it's one of the most heavily studied supplements aside from probably whey protein or protein in general than any other supplement that's out there Extremely safe. There was the concern that it would have an impact on your kidney, and the reason for that is if you're taking creatine and you go to get blood work drawn, you will have increased creatinine levels, which is a sign that your kidney is having trouble filtering things, which could be an indication of kidney damage. Now creatinine, though as you're taking creatine, it directly increases creatinine levels by nature because you're taking more creatine in. It's not a good correlation that you're having any issues with your kidney. In fact, the National Kidney Disease Association came out with a study and said creatine is perfectly safe for kidneys. It has zero impact on overall kidney health, so it does not cause any damage or any type of issue with your kidney.
Speaker 2:The issue is on blood levels. There's other tests that are much better at determining ratios for your kidney filtering than just creatinine. Your bun ratios, things like that, can be better indications of how well your kidney filtering than just creatinine, uh, you know your bun ratios, things like that can can um be better indications of of how well your kidney is actually functioning. So you know, if your doctor's like, hey, your creatinine levels are um high, you could be like, yeah, I'm taking creatine. You'd be like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Let me just do this other calculation.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden now you have a perfectly fine kidney, but even even with that I think like a point on that, because I've dealt with that a couple of times with clients even if you have a higher protein diet, the creatine levels can be increased from that alone, because I've dealt with that specifically with clients with blood work and they come back and they'll be like, oh, this level's raised and I'm like, well, you're eating fucking 200 grams of protein. Like that's probably going to have an impact on it as well. Obviously more elevated if you are supplemented with creatine, but it will come from just higher protein. That's across the board. If you eat more red meat, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yep, and it's also important to note if you're a vegan or vegetarian, creatine supplementation is very beneficial for you, specifically because you're not getting any creatine from meats typically and you're not getting it from your supplementations. You're getting it from proteins and things like that. So if you're getting from proteins and things like that, so if you're, if you're living a vegetarian lifestyle, um, it's one of those things that I'd heavily recommend supplemented creatine um as well, and there's there's a lot of different benefits. I mean, there's a nah uh nah study that came out in 2021 um showing the role of creatine in heart health and if you think about it, your heart is a muscle um, so stronger muscle uh equates to a much better, healthier thing. That's why, when you're working out and doing cardio, you're working at your muscle, which is your heart, which gives you much better lipids and blood panels and better ways of protecting against any type of heart disease or heart failure. They've shown in a lot of the studies with creatine for those that actually have heart failure failure that creatine has has substantial benefits for those in improving their heart condition after something like a heart failure event, which is which is really important to note. There's a lot of other benefits too.
Speaker 2:Now I want to also caveat with the human clinical trials on this are still undergoing. Also caveat with the human clinical trials on this are still undergoing. So this is mostly preclinical studies, mostly in animals, but it's shown that creatine can really have a big impact on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, parkinson's disease, sclerosis, traumatic brain injuries, epilepsy. There's a number of studies that show it also improves short-term memory and intelligence. The effects may be stronger in older adults, but they haven't really tested younger. So again, there's a lot of studies out there and you can be like well, this study says this, this study says that, but all of them seem to be extremely positive and extremely safe and well-studied across all areas of the medical field.
Speaker 2:So for me personally, that's why we wanted to do an episode on across all areas of the medical field. So for me personally, that's why we wanted to do an episode on creatine, because of the sheer benefits that it really does have. And the first thing I get asked when I was just talking to my buddy, kai the other day and Kai's like, hey, I'm just getting into lifting, what supplements do you recommend? And he's like I'm looking to go buy some creatine. And I'm like, okay, let's have the supplement discussion real quick.
Speaker 2:Let's have the supplement discussion real quick. Why don't you stay consistent with your workout for six months and then we'll talk about some supplements, right? That's the first thing. You don't need to worry about supplements right now. Don't worry about that. And the second question I always get is why am I always so sore? I'm like keep lifting, you're not going to be sore anymore, that's a lie.
Speaker 1:That's a complete lie. You are just sore, it's kind of ish, a lie.
Speaker 2:There's sore and then there's sore.
Speaker 1:There's the initial difference, which is an inability to move. I specifically remember when I first trained, I woke up and I was like a T-Rex. I was like I cannot actually extend, but neither way I describe it is like if I call it t-rex arms like literally it turns like I have t-rex arms sitting.
Speaker 1:She'll just be walking around like this, yeah but if, like today, right now I don't feel like I'm sore, but I know if I go to pick something up like my hamstrings are going to be sore from training yesterday. So I feel it in movements and whatever else. So the soreness just changes slightly, or else you just adapt to it. I had a call last week to someone they're like oh you know, the goal with training was to, you know, feel better.
Speaker 1:And he says I just feel worse every day all the time, like yep, just yeah, yeah, I think one of the other myths on on creatine as well, in maybe not so specifically with with the people who are listening, but the the point will still stand true. I often remember whenever you know, myself included, or the people around me, were prepping either for a show or a shoot, there was often the question of should it, could creatine be taken out towards the end because of the water weight that it holds?
Speaker 2:um, it does hold water but you're actually hitting on this because I was going to ask you that question, because I'm in the middle of a cutting phase and I was like, hey, should I knock out creatine with the water? I have the answer to your question I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Trainer, here we go. Trainer ben, the answer is no, you keep it in because, yes, it does. Your body does hold on to additional water, but it's intramuscular, so it doesn't in. In fact, if anything, it's probably better to keep it in. So if you think about what happens whenever you're in a fat loss phase, you obviously want to be as lean as possible. I have as little body fat as possible. I as little between your skin and your muscle as possible. So I imagine that the thought is and probably your thought well, if I'm holding water in there, then I'm going to look less lean, but because it holds it intramuscular, it'll make the muscles look bigger. It'll make the muscles look bigger, which will press against the skin a little bit more, which will actually make you look better. So, yes, be wary that if you are going to introduce creatine, you will see your weight increase, especially if you're doing a loading phase.
Speaker 2:But it will slowly, really quickly, by the way, and we're talking within a two-week period. Yeah, you will gain substantial amount of water weight.
Speaker 1:Yes, substantial is like like three to five pounds yeah, which can be substantial if you're in fat loss days and you've just fucking you've, you've lost loads of weight, um. So, yeah, do be prepared for your, your weight, to go up, but that is okay, that's part of the process. It's intermuscular and it's not actually going to represent like it's not going to have that watery look or that like make you look bloated or anything, because you do hold it intramuscular. So, yes, you will gain weight, um, but I don't want to say it'll be a good way, you will hold it intramuscularly yeah, and, and we're talking a little bit.
Speaker 2:So on the the steroids side of the house, there's a lot of steroids that give you a lot of water retention, um, and and so you'll have this like. You'll see, like when people are like bulking and they're leveraging steroids, they'll have this like really puffy, you know, kind of overweightish. Look, for lack of a better term is the best way of explaining. It's still muscular, but information, I would say yes.
Speaker 2:Information probably looks at something like that's probably the best way to describe it yeah, the creatine is very different in the sense that it's actually to give you a little bit more size and volume on those muscles, so your muscles will actually pop a little bit more. You'll have a little bit of a better pump as you're going through and doing your workouts. I noticed for sure. I'll take breaks off of supplements for periods of time just to give my body some time to recover, which might sound weird, but I try to mix and match.
Speaker 2:If I'm feeling sluggish or maybe my lipids don't come back, I'll take a cold turkey of my supplements and kind of mix them in to see, like hey, are any of these impacting any of my lipids or things like that, for the better or for worse? And so for like creatine, for example, I will notice pretty quickly after I stopped taking creatine usually within like two to three weeks that I look smaller. You know, in nature you can actually see aesthetically, you know that you actually look a little bit smaller. So if you want to look a little bit larger now I also want to caveat for women this isn't going to make you look bulky, or puffy.
Speaker 1:I put on Twitter. I put on Twitter. Jan commented is it going to make me look like a man? Is it going to turn me into a man? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:For women, I highly recommend creatine as well. It's not going to make you look bulky or massively large or things like that. It'll actually help with the tonality of your muscles.
Speaker 1:Tonality is a great word, because whenever I coach females or have coached females in the past they talk about they want to be more toned and it frustrates me in the end of what they're saying. I get it and I understand, but that's exactly what you're saying and it frustrates me in the end of what they're saying. I get it and I understand, but that's exactly what you're saying is like to to be toned, you need to be more muscular and to be leaner, so to fill out the muscle with creatine to have that look, it does definitely help with that.
Speaker 2:Yep, and, and you know the um, the, the, the piece with, like I understand, women are more concerned about not looking extremely large and that's a big stigma. That's been really since I was a kid. It was always like men need to lift, women need to do cardio, and what we're seeing from all of the studies altogether is that it's the exact opposite. Well, it's not the exact opposite. Women should be lifting and doing cardio and men should be lifting and doing cardio. And it's not going to, you know, increase, you know you looking larger and bigger, you're not going to get the large muscle volumes, and that's primarily because men generate substantially more levels of testosterone. Testosterone equates to that muscle building process. Unless, unless you're taking unless women are taking to, you know, testosterone exogenously, externally or taking steroids like Anivar, things like that, you're not going to get this big, bulky look of massive muscles. You'll have much more definition and tonality in your muscles. Your muscles will grow a little bit for sure, which is a good thing.
Speaker 2:Skeletal muscle mass as well as lean body mass are two important factors of longevity in life. So you want to, you know, as a woman or a man, you want to have as much muscle mass as you can as you age, which directly correlates to overall body health and your ability to stay alive longer and, by the way, quality of life, which is extremely important, you know. I see, you know, older couples that can barely move around, you know, in a wheelchair or a wheelchair or run around with a cane, and that sucks. I don't want to be in that position. I want to be strong. I want to be deadlifting 600 pounds when I'm 90. So it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:I wonder what episode of the podcast will be on then 17,092.
Speaker 2:But I think it's important for both men and women to understand the same mechanisms that our bodies use for living longer is the same regardless if you're a woman or man, and creatine is something that definitely can help out for all of those. And again I just want to say it has a lot of neuroprotective functions as well, keeping groups of nerve cells safe from injury or damage. Short-term memory reasoning. It has a lot more benefits than just the muscle mass production. But I just want to go back to back in 2000s, when I remember going to GNC for the first time and I'm seeing this miracle supplement called creatine that was being promoted in every single wall at GNC and all over any type of place you went to. Its promise was to speed up muscle recovery, increase your anabolic hormones and boost water content in the muscle cells, and that's exactly what it does. So that hasn't changed from early 2000s to now. We know that, hey, maybe it doesn't give us as much benefits at 22% increase in muscle mass that we originally thought was predominantly water weight.
Speaker 1:But anytime that you can recover faster, do volume and increase, you know, androgenic hormones, those things will also, you know, be a massive piece of of that muscle building process that you wouldn't be getting if you weren't taking creatine yeah, and I think if you, if you think about it as a company, like do not think about creatine as a short-term fix, like think about like a I'll say, a lifelong commitment as such, if you think regardless of like percentages or whatever, if it allows you to get at least one extra rep per set, per workout across time, surely you're like there are going to be benefits to that, like you are going to gain more muscle, you are going to be bigger.
Speaker 1:You're going to have atomic habits quite a bit yeah exactly Like the compounding effect of that, like regardless, like we're not talking huge percentages or massive changes, but if you think about it as like the, if you think about, if we're talking about electricity, if you think about it as a battery reserve, so when your ATP runs out, creatine kicks in and it just allows it to function as it was before.
Speaker 1:Rep on every set that you do, in every workout every week for a 10 year period. You're going to see a substantial amount increase across that period of time and I think, to your point, it does exactly what it said it was outlined to do at the start and I think the exploration on where the studies are going now are beyond that. Um, a couple of things that I noted are cognitive resilience um, so like improvement and improved memory, processing speed and mental fatigue so we've obviously touched on that and then obviously playing about with different doses, and there's a lot of talk around sleep deprivation um, so a single dose of 20 grams improves focus even beyond 24 hours of being awake. So if you're dealing, with.
Speaker 1:That was a crazy study like so if you're, if you're if you're in some dealing with some sort of shit show or like you're up and you just fucking can't come away from your computer and you're doing some crazy thing at work like to, to know that you can take I don't know if I'm up for that experiment, so I have to stay up for 24 um but to know that you can take creatine at 20 gram dose and it will improve focus at that time, it's quite cool. Um, mood and mental health, brain aging, um, and, as you said, neurodevelopment. It reduces the risk of neurodegenerative diseases by protecting the atp supply in the brain cells, which again, I think like cost benefit ratio. If. If it does, ideal. If it doesn't, it's still doing what it said it would do in terms of the progress that I'm making in terms of the gym yeah, I want to read um, just, this is from the cleveland clinic and I want to read what are the pros of taking creatine?
Speaker 2:so these are from the data studies that the cleveland clinic has curated over time through nih and a bunch of others. They've summarized it here very well which, uh, you know, to me all of these benefits seem extremely good. Uh, you know, in all nature. Uh, so what are the pros of taking creatine? Improve their exercise performance Check, I'm good with that. Help their recovery after intense exercise Great. Increase their muscle mass Fantastic. Prevent severe muscle injuries or reduce the severity of muscle injuries themselves Cool. Helps athletes tolerate more intense activity Fantastic, I need that for legs day. Reduce dehydration and cramping. Minimize muscle tightness, including muscle strains and pulls.
Speaker 2:Neurodegenerative diseases such as muscular dystrophy, parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. Helps with diabetes. Helps with arthritis, fibromyalgia, conditions that affect creatine metabolism, conditions that affect how creatine transports your body. Helps insufficient blood flow to your heart muscle. So, again, a lot of things. Now the negative side effects weight gain because of water retention we already discussed that Potentially, in some cases very minimum. Dizziness, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea been there, excessive sweating. So I've never had excessive sweating. So again, very low on the side effect route and, like I'm saying, if you're taking the upwards of 20 grams, that's where I usually see kind of the GI discomfort. 10 grams is suited very well for me. I have zero GI issues with. That. Does not have any impact whatsoever on on. You know that type of stuff. I won't go into details but you know for me it's suited really well at 10. I don't notice a difference at all between five or 10 grams from a GI perspective. So again, a lot of benefits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I guess to wrap this up and I guess come back with some sort of take home points, number one creatine is good, you should take it. If you want to take it beyond five grams, then that's absolutely cool. I might push, I might sort of continue to experiment with myself and push it up to maybe 15 grams to see if I see any additional benefits. Be prepared for, obviously, your weight to increase if you want to do the loading phase 20 grams per day, uh, split into four doses I don't know if we talked about that. Do not take 20 grams at one time. Um, I think that would absolutely fuck you up. Not taking 20 grams of like powder, yeah, um, and then five grams per day for the muscular benefits and then beyond that for the cognitive benefits. Uh, I think the creatine to get all creatine monohydrate is good. Like, just get the monohydrate. I would say they're all much for muchness. I do use creopure, which is slightly different, but I mean it's slightly more expensive. Is it that much more beneficial?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but I get the only, the only benefits between creatine and creopure is that creopure mixes extremely well with water it's a lot finer.
Speaker 2:It doesn't give you that grainy kind of texture because, uh, with creatine monohydrate, um, it doesn't mix very well with water. So you might get some of like that residue at the very bottom of your thing and you might taste like a little bit of a, like a grainy type of thing. Um, so if you, if you're a texture person, creopure, uh, dissolves completely within water. You don't get any type of residual, anything, it just dissolves perfectly fine within water. So I use Creapure as well. I use the German creatine, which I didn't know this.
Speaker 2:But if you're getting any type of creatine monohydrate at all, at least in the United States, it is coming from China. Okay, 100% of it. Now, if you're getting Creapure, that's the only creatine that is not produced in China and that comes from Germany. Obviously, german creatine, hint, hint, um, it comes from, comes from, comes from Germany. So you know not that that getting supplements from China is a bad thing. Just kind of explaining hey, if you want more of of creatine, that's not really going to get you any benefits one way or the other, other than it mixes well and it's from germany.
Speaker 1:Crea pure is the way to go, yeah I have had people say about they don't like the graininess and I don't really give a shit about that, but I, the crepe here I just got into the habit of using because of the nutrition one and they also make creatine gummies.
Speaker 2:So, uh, yes, which?
Speaker 1:are delicious, very tasty, addictive, and if you want something that's sweet and you're on low calorie diet, they're good to have around.
Speaker 2:They're like 20 calories for like 10 grams and they taste phenomenal.
Speaker 1:That's how I've been getting 10 grams in, because I take a scoop as normal, because I'm in the habit of doing it, and then I eat the gummy so I get the 10 grams from it. Also, on a when to take it thing I get this question quite a lot. I don't believe it matters. I think the best time that you can take it is the time that you know that you consistently take it every day. Because people are like, oh, I'll take it before I work out or after, and I'm like, okay, but on the days that you don't work out then you're not taking it. So that fucks it up.
Speaker 2:I just take it first thing in the morning with my element tea and my fruit, and greens in a shake and my gummies and we're good to go right, especially with the higher dosages between you know, five to 10 grams or the 20 gram loading phase. Think of it as a reserve. So it doesn't actually really matter. When you take creatine, it's not going to help you with an intro workout, for taking it during your intro workout, it's not going to magically go to your muscles during that period of time. Um, cause, again, you're pulling from kind of that reserve. It's not going to digest in your the goal is to saturate the stores.
Speaker 2:Right. So it doesn't matter. You know you can take it at night, you can take it in the morning. It doesn't have any impact on sleep. So if it's easier for you to do it at night, it's easier for you to do it as a pre-workout in your pre-workout. You know, we were actually it's interesting, when we were going through health uh, uh, pre-workout. Um, we, we had creatine in there initially.
Speaker 1:We had five grams of creatine in there initially and which I would like to say I'm glad we take out, because an additional five grams of piter in that scoop would have been, I know I know I'm glad we did too, and and you know the reason why we took it out.
Speaker 2:It was funny because I was I was sitting next to, uh, some folks at a basketball game and I was talking about our pre-workout and everything to some of the other parents and the parents were like, oh, it has creatine and I can't let my kid have that because it impacts your kidney. And I'm like it doesn't actually impact your kidney, but that's the stigma that creatine has with it. So we removed it, for the fact that a lot of folks are hypersensitive to that, which I can fully understand. Obviously you don't want to jack up your kidneys or liver or anything like that. Those are things that you really can't get back, and so we decided to take creatine out of it. Plus, obviously, creatine is so cheap, it's so easy to add in your pre-workout or intro workout.
Speaker 2:So my intro workout that legs day that I started taking I have that legs day and then I take 2 scoops of Creopure, put that into there and that's what I drink throughout my workouts when I'm doing a lift. So for me it's just super simple Just have two tubs there, pop it in, good to go. One scoop here, two scoops here. Good to go, move in. And then the gummies. I just got a big shipment. You gave me the gummies. I'm already through all of those and I bought some new gummies so I have those to test out as well.
Speaker 1:So we'll see how those I think, to wrap it up, if I could put it on a bumper sticker, in terms of creatine and what it does and what it is. Think of it as a battery pack for your body and additional RAM for your brain. Yep.
Speaker 2:That's a good idea. That's a good one. I like that analogy.
Speaker 1:There you go, you can have that, you can use that next time. But yes, we finally did it. Maybe we should do more on the supplements side, because I realize people do like that and I remember a couple of people Jason Wilber specifically have asked us to go back and look at some other supplements and stuff. So if there's any requests, just hit us up and we will come back with full episodes on specific supplements. Maybe we'll talk about omegas, because we did six episodes pretty much on that. We'll go back and revisit.
Speaker 2:One I would love to do and we can wrap this into a bunch of other supplements but a new one that I've been taking. It's called beta glucans. Okay, and they've shown in a lot of the mice trials. Again they're working on the human clinical trials, but with beta glucans all the Lord of the rings.
Speaker 2:It does sound like the ring, but you can get. It's a super cheap supplement. It's like 24 bucks for like a, you know, like uh 90 capsules, um, and and it's uh um. What they've shown in the data studies is that, because of all the bpas that we're consuming, there's what's called gunk. The gunk that's in our brains is enough to produce like an actual like cup of plastic, um, that's literally gunked up in our brains, uh. And so what they've actually shown through beta glucans as a supplement, is it uh one? It helps with like your entire system, overall well-being, stuff like that, but it also removes the BPAs from your brain. So in the studies they've shown in the mice clinical trials it's over 70% reduction in BPAs in your brain as well.
Speaker 2:So at home we don't use plastics, we don't microwave any plastics. We have BPA free um, cooking utensils now and things like that. I don't drink out of uh, typically out of out of plastic bottles. I was just drinking a coke zero there. If you didn't see pepsi's, you're out of a. So it's not a perfect science, right? Um, we're doing our best over here, okay, doing our best, doing our best, which is why I'm taking the, the, the, uh, you know the beta glucans, uh, as a way to kind of of pushing those out. But they've shown with a lot of the new data studies, especially BPAs, it's wreaking havoc in our endocrine system, our brains. That's why we're seeing a lot of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and things like that because of plastics. And I didn't know this. But do you know one of the leading causes of why we have plastics in our body? What do you think the number one source of plastics in our body comes from? This was shocking to me.
Speaker 1:I want to say something like around toothpaste or something like that.
Speaker 2:It's the air, fuck, you know right, because of our tires, oh yeah, and cars.
Speaker 1:So you're not breathing air anymore.
Speaker 2:We're breathing in plastics from the tires all day long as we're driving, thus getting a ton of plastics in our body, which I thought was crazy. So I can't even help that shit. Like you know like it's like I can't like just not use tires, you know like, until they come out floating cars. And back to the future, I do have a delorean, but you know it's like. You know, like, what am I supposed to do with that? So you know, like, the tires, things like that, um, you know, obviously, the plastic swoop in our bodies, those are all things that we we need to try to eliminate as much as possible. So beta glucose might be something you want to look at if you're looking at trying to get rid of bpas in your body. I learned that from dr ronda patrick, by the way, and on the studies that she had done, she's amazing, um. So, uh, pretty cool tidbit there. For that we'll have to do a study.
Speaker 1:I think actually I do what you said about. Sometimes you just give a bit of a reset in terms of supplements. I do the same where I'm like that's just too much, too many things and I just like go back to basics and then I gradually over time start to increase again and I've actively been like researching and I looked at my last blog panel and I was like, right, how can I sort of unfuck all of these things that are, that are fucked, um, and a couple other bits and pieces that I've just had to take into consideration around sleep and and and other bits and pieces. So it might be worthwhile. Just us number one I need to update it on the uh, on the discord, um, but just revisiting our supplement stack things we've added, things we've removed, removed, um. So maybe we'll do that in the next couple months sounds good.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks everybody for listening to this week's podcast of hacking your health. Always, always appreciate you. Um, quick shout out to my buddy. Mick is a new listener. Um, you know, he's one of my friends, uh, and he's he's really been diving into all of the different uh uh podcast episodes and I'm going to be lifting with him on Thursday for a mass mistake for my one friend. Did you never see him again after that? I've never seen him again after after that. So we're doing chest, we're doing, we're doing push, so we're doing push tomorrow, uh, I'm gonna put him through a nice push workout and, uh, hopefully teach him some stuff.
Speaker 1:So nice good, I'll say this, I'm gonna finish here. Uh, dumbbell incline dumbbell bench press was reintroduced to my program. Haven't done it in ages. Actually was looking at the dumbbells being like I don't use these for anything. Um, much better than I know that you like this. You know I like this as well, but see like, just being right down in the bottom of the dumbbells here, much better. So anyway, I'll finish that. Thanks for listening. If you need anything, check us out at WeHackHealth on all social media platforms and we'll see you next week. See you next week.