Bulletin #130 – Creatine

Creatine does it all: increases muscle mass, builds strength, and enhances endurance, according to a growing body of scientific research. (1-6). We’ve been doing our own trials here as well and have seen impressive results . What is creatine, and how does it work? For background, the immediate source of energy for all cellular activity, including muscle contraction, is a mol-ecule called ATP. This stands for adenos-ine triphosphate. ATP is formed from the chemical energy contained in food. Food is oxidized, or burned, in the body to re-lease energy. This energy is used to form ATP, which then goes on to power cellular activity. The body’s stores of ATP are very limited. In fact, each muscle cell contains only enough ATP to power contractions for a few seconds. Therefore, ATP must be continuously regenerated . That’s where creatine fits in. When ATP is broken down to as part of the en-ergy-producing process, creatine (in the form of creatine phosphate, or CP) steps in and chemically regenerates ATP (1). This allows high energy muscle contractions to continue. After about 45 seconds to 2 min-utes (depending on the intensity of effort) the creatine phosphate is also used up, and power production by the muscle rapidly declines.

Parrillo Performance
800-344-3404

This is what happens when you fail at the end of a set – you’ve used up all your ATP and CP, which means you’re out of fuel. This is also why high intensity weight lifting sets usually last about a min-ute before you fail. After the CP is used up, ATP cannot be regenerated fast enough to maintain a high level of intensity. Lower intensity exercise (aerobic exercise like bike riding) can be continued almost in-definitely because you can generate CP and ATP fast enough to keep up with the energy demands of the activity. You’ll notice supplemental creatine comes in the form of creatine monohydrate. Why isn’t creatine phosphate or ATP itself used as a supplement instead? Simply put, because it doesn’t work. Molecules such as CP and ATP are not absorbed through the intestine . Creatine monohydrate, on the other hand, is readily absorbed and does in fact reach the muscle cell when administered orally (2).

This is why it can be used as an effective supplement. Once inside the muscle cell it is converted to creatine phos-phate. What about the sublingual route? This is bogus, since the molecule still has to cross cell membranes to reach the circu-lation. What about liquid creatine? Doubly bogus, since creatine tends to break down when stored as a solution. So how exactly does creatine increase muscle size and strength? It increases strength by increasing the intracellular lev-els of creatine and creatine phosphate, which allows more rapid ATP production. This means more energy is available to the cell, allowing it to work harder. This same mechanism explains why creatine increases endurance performance too. If you increase the creatine pool inside the muscle this increases the cell’s energy reserve, allow-ing longer, as well as more powerful, con-tractions. Creatine is very popular among endurance athletes, and is widely used in track and field. Creatine increases muscle size because it attracts water. Creatine is absorbed into the muscle cell and pulls a lot of water along with it, causing the muscle to swell.

This results in larger, firmer muscles and a better pump. Please realize that creatine itself does not directly increase muscle protein. As with all supplements, it is vital that you use creatine in conjunction with a solid bodybuilding diet. You need protein to build muscle tissue and carbohydrates to provide energy. Creatine itself is not burned to produce energy, rather it acts as an energy buffer to transfer the energy derived from carbohydrate and fat oxida-tion to ATP. Creatine is not incorporated into protein. It will, however, indirectly increase the protein mass of muscles over time by allowing you to perform higher in-tensity workouts. That is, of course, if you are eating enough lean protein and quality calories to support muscle gains . What can you expect from creatine? Typically in hard-training bodybuilders, we observe an increase of 4-14 pounds of lean mass during the first month of using creatine. This is remarkable. This does not mean you have to consume 4-14 pounds of creatine. Remember, most of the weight gain and size increase comes from water.

Creatine is stored in muscle cells, where it attracts water. The more muscle mass you have to start with, the more creatine you can assimilate and the more weight you will gain from using creatine. Small bodybuilders usually gain 4-6 pounds and the really big guys gain 10-14 pounds. We have verified that this weight gain shows up as an increase in lean body mass when you do body composition testing. Remember that lean mass is a measure of everything in your body that’s not fat, including the skeleton and muscle, including water. It’s hard to imagine anybody happier than a bodybuilder who gains 10 pounds of lean mass in one month .Regarding performance, we’ve seen ath-letes experience a 5-15% increase in strength on their maximum lifts, and an increase of about 2 reps per set with their working weight. This increase in training intensity allows you to put a greater load on the muscle, which will indeed increase your gains in muscle protein mass over time. The amount of strength gain each in-dividual can make may differ considerably, because the strength of your tendons also determines how much weight the muscle can lift. While it seems clear that creatine will allow faster and greater gains in size and strength over the long-term, firm num-bers cannot be attached at the onset. A lot depends on whether you are eating enough protein and calories to support gains.

If you don’t eat enough to support muscle gain, you won’t see any, it’s that simple. But with a solid, high-calorie, high-protein diet and intense training, your muscle gains can be incredible. Regarding endurance exercise, we’ve seen athletes experience a 5-10% increase in speed and a 10-20% increase in time to fatigue. As with nearly all supplements, actual usage will vary from person to person and will likely change as your body and train-ing changes. To start out, I recommend for the first one to two weeks you use 20-30 grams a day divided into even servings taken with each meal, or with a Hi-Pro-tein/Pro-Carb drink. This is the loading phase . One scoop or heaping teaspoon is five grams, so one of these with each meal is about right. Use the lower end of these ranges if you’re 150-200 pounds, and the upper end if you’re over 200 pounds. We recommend one to two weeks, but the load-ing phase may take as many as four weeks. When you find that you’re really getting a good pump, the loading phase has filled the creatine stores in your muscle. After that, 5-10 grams a day is enough to maintain your creatine stores. Cycling creatine is of no advantage. If you stop taking creatine, you simply deplete your existing store, which takes 4-8 weeks. Creatine can be mixed in plain wa-ter too. Don’t be concerned that creatine doesn’t dissolve fully; just drink the sus-pension.

It gets absorbed very well. Don’t’ mix creatine in water too far in advance of when you take it, however, since it begins to break down. A great way to pack creatine is to take a shaker bottle with a scoop of Hi-Protein or Pro-Carb, plus a scoop of cre-atine and put it in your gym bag or cooler. Then just add water, shake, and drink. An-other convenient way to use creatine is to mix it into oatmeal. Creatine has no flavor, but it is a little grainy. Are there any medical concerns with taking creatine? If you have any blood work done you might find that creatine elevates your creatinine level. Doctors use the creatinine level in the blood as an index of kidney function. If your doctor notices an increase in your creatinine level and ex-presses some concern about your kidneys, tell him or her that you’re using creatine . Creatine does not damage the kidneys in any way, but is contraindicated if you have pre-existing severe kidney disease (for ex-ample, renal dialysis or kidney transplant patients). People with severe kidney dis-ease have trouble eliminating creatinine, and creatine supplementation would in-crease creatinine levels further.

References

1. Maughan RJ. Creatine supplementa-tion and exercise performance. Interna-tional Journal of Sport Nutrition 5: 94-101, 1995 .

2. Greenhaff PL. Creatine and its ap-plication as an ergogenic aid. International Journal of Sport Nutrition 5: S100-S110, 1995 .

3. Crim MC, Munro HN. Proteins and Amino Acids. Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease 8: 9-10, 1994 .

4. Greenhaff PL, Casey A, Short AH, Harris AC, Soderlund K, and Hultman E. Influence of oral creatine supplementation on muscle torque during repeated bouts of maximal voluntary exercise in man. Clin. Sci . 84: 565-571, 1993 .

5. Harris RC, Viru M, Greenhaff PL, and Haltman E. The effect of oral creatine supplementation on running performance during maximal short term exercise in man. J. Physiol. 467: 74P, 1993.

6. Ernest CP, Snell PG, Mitchell TL, Rodriguez R, and Almada AL. Effect of creatine monohydrate on peak anaerobic power, capacity, and fatigue index. Med. Sci. Sports. Exerc. 26: S39, 1994.

Bulletin #138 – Creatine for Maximum Results

If you are interested in maximizing mus-cle size, creatine helps in two ways. A more long-term effect is that creatine supplementation allows you to lift more weight for more reps, so you get more muscle fiber hypertrophy. A more imme-diate effect is that as muscle cells take up creatine, it takes water along with it. So it makes the muscle fibers swell, getting bigger and harder. After a month of cre-atine supplementation, you might ingest only 250 grams of creatine, but gain six to fourteen pounds of muscle mass. That weight is mostly water, being drawn in-side muscles cells by the extra creatine. It’s kind of like having a constant pump. Your body makes some creatine naturally. Your kidneys make about one gram per day . Creatine is also contained in meat, and the average diet of meat eaters supplies about another gram per day. So, without creatine supplementation, you get about two grams per day, unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case you get about one gram per day .

Parrillo Performance
800-344-3404

Creatine supplementa-tion allows you to propel this to a much higher level. This increases the amount of creatine inside muscle cells, making them bigger and harder and stronger. The way to use creatine is to start with a loading phase, which usually is 20 grams a day for five to seven days. To do this, take five grams (one teaspoon) four times a day, for five to seven days. This is followed by the maintenance phase, which is five to ten grams a day. After only one month, you will see a noticeable increase in size and strength. I feel that Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™ is the highest purity creatine supple-ment available. And a word of caution: don’t be fooled into buying creatine phos-phate supplements.

It sounds like a good idea, until you realize creatine phosphate is not absorbed from the intestine. You need to use creatine monohydrate, which is absorbed from the intestines. Once transported inside muscle cells, it is con-verted into creatine phosphate. Also beware of liquid creatine supplements, as creatine will break down after a few weeks of being dissolved in water. To boost your gains through the roof, there’s an excellent supplement to use in combination with creatine: 50-50 Plus™. 50-50 Plus™ is a drink mix made from about 50% protein and 50% carbohydrate. The protein portion is very much like Parrillo Hi-Protein Powder™, and the carbohydrate part is derived from Pro-Carb™. Studies have shown that a combination of protein and carbohy-drate like this works better at promoting muscular growth than either one alone. Combining creatine with 50-50 Plus™ is, quite frankly, the most potent nutri-tional supplement available for support-ing muscle growth.

The amino acid pro-file of the protein is ideal for supporting muscular growth, and the carbohydrate replenishes glycogen, further enhancing energy levels and strength. The best time to use this combination is after training. At that time your muscles are depleted and are begging for nutrients. The pro-tein acts to repair muscle damage from training as well as to supply the building blocks to generate new muscle tissue. The carbohydrate replenishes glycogen, as well as increasing uptake of the amino acids and creatine by muscle cells. If you’re on a budget and want to keep things simple, try 50-50 Plus™ along with creatine. After just one month, used in combination with proper diet, you will see and feel a difference.

Bulletin #130 – Creatine

Creatine does it all: increases muscle mass, builds strength, and enhances endurance, according to a growing body of scientific research. (1-6). We’ve been doing our own trials here as well and have seen impressive results . What is creatine, and how does it work? For background, the immediate source of energy for all cellular activity, including muscle contraction, is a mol-ecule called ATP.

Parrillo Performance
800-344-3404

This stands for adenos-ine triphosphate. ATP is formed from the chemical energy contained in food. Food is oxidized, or burned, in the body to re-lease energy. This energy is used to form ATP, which then goes on to power cellular activity. The body’s stores of ATP are very limited. In fact, each muscle cell contains only enough ATP to power contractions for a few seconds. Therefore, ATP must be continuously regenerated . That’s where creatine fits in. When ATP is broken down to as part of the en-ergy-producing process, creatine (in the form of creatine phosphate, or CP) steps in and chemically regenerates ATP (1). This allows high energy muscle contractions to continue. After about 45 seconds to 2 min-utes (depending on the intensity of effort) the creatine phosphate is also used up, and power production by the muscle rapidly declines. This is what happens when you fail at the end of a set – you’ve used up all your ATP and CP, which means you’re out of fuel. This is also why high intensity weight lifting sets usually last about a min-ute before you fail. After the CP is used up, ATP cannot be regenerated fast enough to maintain a high level of intensity.

Lower intensity exercise (aerobic exercise like bike riding) can be continued almost in-definitely because you can generate CP and ATP fast enough to keep up with the energy demands of the activity. You’ll notice supplemental creatine comes in the form of creatine monohydrate. Why isn’t creatine phosphate or ATP itself used as a supplement instead? Simply put, because it doesn’t work. Molecules such as CP and ATP are not absorbed through the intestine . Creatine monohydrate, on the other hand, is readily absorbed and does in fact reach the muscle cell when administered orally (2). This is why it can be used as an effective supplement. Once inside the muscle cell it is converted to creatine phos-phate. What about the sublingual route? This is bogus, since the molecule still has to cross cell membranes to reach the circu-lation. What about liquid creatine? Doubly bogus, since creatine tends to break down when stored as a solution. So how exactly does creatine increase muscle size and strength? It increases strength by increasing the intracellular lev-els of creatine and creatine phosphate, which allows more rapid ATP production.

This means more energy is available to the cell, allowing it to work harder. This same mechanism explains why creatine increases endurance performance too. If you increase the creatine pool inside the muscle this increases the cell’s energy reserve, allow-ing longer, as well as more powerful, con-tractions. Creatine is very popular among endurance athletes, and is widely used in track and field. Creatine increases muscle size because it attracts water. Creatine is absorbed into the muscle cell and pulls a lot of water along with it, causing the muscle to swell. This results in larger, firmer muscles and a better pump. Please realize that creatine itself does not directly increase muscle protein. As with all supplements, it is vital that you use creatine in conjunction with a solid bodybuilding diet. You need protein to build muscle tissue and carbohydrates to provide energy. Creatine itself is not burned to produce energy, rather it acts as an energy buffer to transfer the energy derived from carbohydrate and fat oxida-tion to ATP. Creatine is not incorporated into protein. It will, however, indirectly increase the protein mass of muscles over time by allowing you to perform higher in-tensity workouts.

That is, of course, if you are eating enough lean protein and quality calories to support muscle gains . What can you expect from creatine? Typically in hard-training bodybuilders, we observe an increase of 4-14 pounds of lean mass during the first month of using creatine. This is remarkable. This does not mean you have to consume 4-14 pounds of creatine. Remember, most of the weight gain and size increase comes from water. Creatine is stored in muscle cells, where it attracts water. The more muscle mass you have to start with, the more creatine you can assimilate and the more weight you will gain from using creatine. Small bodybuilders usually gain 4-6 pounds and the really big guys gain 10-14 pounds. We have verified that this weight gain shows up as an increase in lean body mass when you do body composition testing. Remember that lean mass is a measure of everything in your body that’s not fat, including the skeleton and muscle, including water.

It’s hard to imagine anybody happier than a bodybuilder who gains 10 pounds of lean mass in one month .Regarding performance, we’ve seen ath-letes experience a 5-15% increase in strength on their maximum lifts, and an increase of about 2 reps per set with their working weight. This increase in training intensity allows you to put a greater load on the muscle, which will indeed increase your gains in muscle protein mass over time. The amount of strength gain each in-dividual can make may differ considerably, because the strength of your tendons also determines how much weight the muscle can lift. While it seems clear that creatine will allow faster and greater gains in size and strength over the long-term, firm num-bers cannot be attached at the onset. A lot depends on whether you are eating enough protein and calories to support gains. If you don’t eat enough to support muscle gain, you won’t see any, it’s that simple. But with a solid, high-calorie, high-protein diet and intense training, your muscle gains can be incredible. Regarding endurance exercise, we’ve seen athletes experience a 5-10% increase in speed and a 10-20% increase in time to fatigue.

As with nearly all supplements, actual usage will vary from person to person and will likely change as your body and train-ing changes. To start out, I recommend for the first one to two weeks you use 20-30 grams a day divided into even servings taken with each meal, or with a Hi-Pro-tein/Pro-Carb drink. This is the loading phase . One scoop or heaping teaspoon is five grams, so one of these with each meal is about right. Use the lower end of these ranges if you’re 150-200 pounds, and the upper end if you’re over 200 pounds. We recommend one to two weeks, but the load-ing phase may take as many as four weeks. When you find that you’re really getting a good pump, the loading phase has filled the creatine stores in your muscle. After that, 5-10 grams a day is enough to maintain your creatine stores. Cycling creatine is of no advantage. If you stop taking creatine, you simply deplete your existing store, which takes 4-8 weeks. Creatine can be mixed in plain wa-ter too. Don’t be concerned that creatine doesn’t dissolve fully; just drink the sus-pension.

It gets absorbed very well. Don’t’ mix creatine in water too far in advance of when you take it, however, since it begins to break down. A great way to pack creatine is to take a shaker bottle with a scoop of Hi-Protein or Pro-Carb, plus a scoop of cre-atine and put it in your gym bag or cooler. Then just add water, shake, and drink. An-other convenient way to use creatine is to mix it into oatmeal. Creatine has no flavor, but it is a little grainy. Are there any medical concerns with taking creatine? If you have any blood work done you might find that creatine elevates your creatinine level. Doctors use the creatinine level in the blood as an index of kidney function. If your doctor notices an increase in your creatinine level and ex-presses some concern about your kidneys, tell him or her that you’re using creatine . Creatine does not damage the kidneys in any way, but is contraindicated if you have pre-existing severe kidney disease (for ex-ample, renal dialysis or kidney transplant patients). People with severe kidney dis-ease have trouble eliminating creatinine, and creatine supplementation would in-crease creatinine levels further.

References

1. Maughan RJ. Creatine supplementa-tion and exercise performance. Interna-tional Journal of Sport Nutrition 5: 94-101, 1995 .

2. Greenhaff PL. Creatine and its ap-plication as an ergogenic aid. International Journal of Sport Nutrition 5: S100-S110, 1995 .

3. Crim MC, Munro HN. Proteins and Amino Acids. Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease 8: 9-10, 1994 .

4. Greenhaff PL, Casey A, Short AH, Harris AC, Soderlund K, and Hultman E. Influence of oral creatine supplementation on muscle torque during repeated bouts of maximal voluntary exercise in man. Clin. Sci . 84: 565-571, 1993 .

5. Harris RC, Viru M, Greenhaff PL, and Haltman E. The effect of oral creatine supplementation on running performance during maximal short term exercise in man. J. Physiol. 467: 74P, 1993.

6. Ernest CP, Snell PG, Mitchell TL, Rodriguez R, and Almada AL. Effect of creatine monohydrate on peak anaerobic power, capacity, and fatigue index. Med. Sci. Sports. Exerc. 26: S39, 1994.

Bulletin #125 – The Whey and Creatine Blast!

July 21, 2009
Bulletin #125 – The Whey and Creatine Blast!
Parrillo Performance

Two “heavy hitter” supplements prov-en scientifically to enhance lean muscle when combined with an intense weight training program are whey protein and creatine monohydrate. You may be tak-ing one or the other, or you may be using both.

Parrillo Performance
800-344-3404

If you are using both, then you are harnessing the supplement synergy of this combination – and that means a potentially greater increase in muscle mass, according to recent research published in the Inter-national Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism . In this six-week study of 36 weight-training men, those who took whey protein and creatine daily (in the amount of 1 gram of each per 2.2 pounds of body weight) increased their muscle mass significant-ly, plus increased their bench pressing strength. Control groups who took whey alone had some increase in mass but not as much as when creatine was added to the mix. Those who took a pure carbohydrate placebo showed very little gain. This study suggests that part of your supplement pro-gram for gaining leaning mass and build-ing strength should involve taking whey and creatine. Both have individual benefits, but appear to be synergistic when taken in combo. (1)How Whey Works For background, whey is a compo-nent of milk that is separated from milk to make cheese and other dairy products.

It is a chief ingredient of some protein powders and drinks formulated specifically for athletes and exercisers. At Parrillo Per-formance, we have an entire line of prod-ucts formulated with whey, including our Optimized Whey™ Formula (100% whey protein isolate), our Hi Protein™ Powder which is whey protein isolate and calcium caseinate and our 50-50 Plus™ Formula (formulated with whey protein isolate, cal-cium caseinate, milk protein isolates, and maltodextrin), to be used in conjunction with our Nutrition Program.  Whey protein is significantly high in the branch chain amino acid, leucine, and this is significant. Leucine plays an im-portant role in protein metabolism and has a signaling function in the body – which basically means that it stimulates protein synthesis in skeletal muscle, although this function is not yet well understood. Leu-cine has been shown in research to trigger significant and preferential losses of vis-ceral body fat.

Located in the deeper layers of the body under the subcutaneous fat, visceral fat is often the hardest fat to lose and doesn’t respond well to dieting, particularly in women. This high leucine com-ponent may possibly be responsible for the potential fat-burning effect observed with whey protein. (2) Our whey protein supplements are also high in the mineral calcium. Known best for its job as a bone-builder, calcium also controls fat-burning mechanisms in the body by turning on switches that activate fat metabolism. (3) Whey protein is also a proven re-covery nutrient. In one study of athletes, supplementing with a whey protein drink immediately after exercise and then one and two hours later accelerated the rate of glycogen resynthesis. (4) This means, essentially, that you rebuild your muscle energy supplies much more efficiently so that you can continue to work out more intensely – which leads to greater gains. So the bottom line is that whey protein, with its certain constituent parts, naturally enhances anabolic processes in the body.How Creatine Monohydrate Works Named after the Greek word for flesh (kreas), creatine was first discovered in meat in 1832 .

Creatine is produced natural-ly in the liver, kidneys, and pancreas — at a rate of about 2 grams a day — from the amino acids arginine, glycine, and methio-nine. Most of your body’s creatine is deliv-ered to the muscles, heart, and other body cells. Inside muscle cells, creatine helps produce and circulate adenosine triphos-phate (ATP), the molecular fuel that pow-ers muscular contractions . Supplementing with creatine provides numerous benefits. (5,6,7) Creatine increases levels of a high-en-ergy compound called creatine phosphate, which also allows more rapid production of ATP. The more ATP that is available to muscle cells, the longer, harder, and more powerfully you can work out. Thus, cre-atine can indirectly help you lose body fat, since longer, more intense workouts help incinerate fat and build lean muscle. The more muscle you have, the more efficient your body is at using energy and burning fat. Creatine helps your body manufacture contractile proteins within muscle fibers. When you build muscle through exercise, diet, and assistance from creatine, you’re essentially increasing the amount of con-tractile proteins in your muscle fibers. This makes the muscle fibers expand in diam-eter, get stronger, and generate more force when they contract. Creatine promotes muscular gains in body mass, averaging up to 6 pounds or more, usually within several weeks of use. Some of the weight gain experienced by creatine users is due partly to water.

Creatine attracts water into the muscle cell, and this action inflates muscles so that they look fuller. Body composition testing of creatine users, however, has verified that much of the weight gain is lean muscle. Creatine postpones exercise fatigue. Creatine depletion in muscle cells is a ma-jor cause of fatigue. In one study, research-ers looked at creatine levels in sprinters and found that their muscle supply fell markedly according to the length of the sprints. After 100 meters, creatine levels dropped by 50 percent; after 200 me-ters, 59 percent; and after 400 meters, 90 percent. When creatine stores were fully drained, complete fatigue set in. Creatine improves the force and power with which you train. This has been proven repeatedly in studies of athletes who per-form short-burst movements in their sports. At the Kingston University in the United Kingdom, researchers tested the effects of creatine on exercise performance in elite athletes. Athletes took 20 grams of creatine a day in divided doses for five days; another group took a placebo. The athletes engaged in three maximal kayak ergometer tests.

(The tests simulated the sport of kayaking, which is very demand-ing, particularly on upper body strength.) Those taking the creatine were able to perform significantly more work than those taking the placebo. The results of this study indicate that creatine can help you sustain more powerful contractions when working out. (8) In another recent study, women ex-ercisers took 20 grams a day of creatine for four days, then followed a mainte-nance dose of 5 grams a day for a total of 10 weeks. Another group took a placebo. Those women taking the creatine were able to complete more repetitions with signifi-cantly higher poundages than those taking the placebo. (9)The Whey Creatine Blast Here’s how to take these two supple-ments . To use creatine in your supplement program I recommend taking four 5-gram doses a day for five to 10 days. This is known as the “loading phase.” From there, two to 5 gram doses once a day — about half a teaspoon — will keep your muscles saturated with enough extra creatine. This period is called the “maintenance phase.” Then I recommend that you take cre-atine with one of our whey protein pow-ders. Try this for several weeks, but be sure to monitor and record your gains using our BodyStat measuring system . Diet is critical too . To support muscle growth, creatine works best if you fol-low the Parrillo Nutrition Program, which supplies ample calories from the proper categories of proteins and carbohydrates.

References

(1) Burke, D.G. 2001. The effect of whey protein supplement with and with-out creatine monohydrate combined with resistance training on lean tissue mass and muscle strength . International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism 11: 349-364 .

(2) Ha, E., et al. 2003. Functional properties of whey, whey components, and essential amino acids: mechanisms un-derlying health benefits for active people. Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry 14: 251-258 .

(3) Ha, E., et al. 2003. Functional properties of whey, whey components, and essential amino acids: mechanisms un-derlying health benefits for active people. Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry 14: 251-258 .

(4) Van Hall, G., et al. 2000. The ef-fect of free glutamine and peptide ingestion on the rate of muscle glycogen resynthesis in man . International Journal of Sports Medicine 21: 25-30 .

(5) Clarkson, P.M. 1996. Nutrition for improved sports performance. Sports Medicine 6: 393-401 .

(6) Andersen-Parrado, P. 1997. High-intensity activity + creatine supplementa-tion = muscle power. Better Nutrition, November, 16-17.

(7) Volek, J.S., Kraemer, W.J., Bush, J.A., et al. 1997. Creatine supplementa-tion enhances muscular performance dur-ing high-intensity exercise. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 97: 765-770.

(8) McNaughton, L.R., et al. 1998. The effects of creatine supplemen-tation on high-intensity exercise perfor-mance in elite athletes . European Journal of Applied Physiology 78: 236-240 .

(9) Vandenberghe, K., et al. 1997. Long-term creatine intake is beneficial to muscle performance during resistance training . Journal of Applied Physiology 83: 2055-1063 .

CREATINE & WHEY: A MARRIAGE MADE IN MUSCLE HEAVEN

If you want to push the envelope of size and strength, make sure you’re taking a combo cocktail of whey protein powder and creatine. This powerful blend has been studied intensely in recent years, and results are promising.

Case in point: Researchers from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, tested lean tissue mass, bench press, squat strength (one-rep max), and knee extension power in 36 males during and after six weeks of resistance training. The exercisers were randomly assigned one of three supplement groups: whey protein (about one-half gram per pound of bodyweight daily) only; whey protein plus creatine monohydrate (about 0.45 gram per pound daily); or a placebo.

Read more

Bulletin #81 – Eating For Muscle

Have you noticed how people in the gym where you train don’t make much progress? The reasons are not all that complicated, either they are not train-ing right or they are not eating right. It doesn’t take magic or a miracle to build muscle but it does take correct training and eating. We could argue for years about how many sets and reps or how much weight to use or if you should do your inclines at 30 degrees or 40 degrees, but the bottom line on training is to train hard every time. While there is a science to it, the basics are simple, train real hard, use a variety of exercises, sets and reps.

Parrillo Performance
800-344-3404

Most Parrillo Press readers are people who understand this idea and do a fair job of it. Don’t worry so much about over-training as more often than not people un-der-train, they do not work hard enough or long enough to stimulate growth. Con-cern yourself with training harder, not training less. And concern yourself with improving your recovery rather than cut-ting back on amount of exercise. The problems associated with muscle growth often relate to improper eating, the kind that is insufficient to support recovery and growth. Folks tend to not eat right and not eat enough. At Parrillo Performance we have dedicated the last two decades to de-veloping and refining the art and science of performance eating. I typically work with people who need to eat more and when they do they suddenly make great gains. They dis-cover they are not the ‘hard gainers’ they thought they were after all. You can’t gain muscle without eating enough calories to support growth. Start by cleaning up your diet. People typically take in more calo-ries than they expend and because they are relatively sedentary they store excess calories as bodyfat.

Weed out saturated fat first and foremost then crank back on the refined carbs and sugar but replace these lost calories with ‘clean’ calories. To gain quality muscle you need to train like a madman and consume more calo-ries than you expend. The issue is what should we eat to supply those calories and does it make a difference? Fat should be limited to 5-10% of our diet and when you do this will knock a lot of calories out of your diet. Fat is used to supply energy but cannot be converted to muscle or glycogen so any excess calories provided by fat can only be stored as body fat. For those looking to add some size I would recommend you increase your calories by 300-500 per day . Weight train intensely, perform aerobics on a regular basis, eat right and the bodyweight you gain will be muscle. Don’t under-eat and don’t overeat! You might notice that as you add muscle your metabolic rate increases. Muscle is very active tissue and uses a lot of calories every day, even at rest.

The more muscle you have the higher your meta-bolic rate. For a muscular person to fuel growth you have to eat more. After crank-ing back on dietary fat let’s then intake at least one and a half grams of protein per pound of body weight daily. A 200-pound bodybuilder would intake 300-grams each day to achieve a 1:1 protein to pounds ratio. Good food sources for lean protein include skinless chicken breast, skinless turkey breast, egg whites, and fish. Most bodybuilders find it impossible to eat as much protein as they need and use a protein supplement . Our Hi-Protein Powder™ and Optimized Whey Protein™ are excellent protein product with two scoops of Optimized Whey™ providing 33 grams of the finest quality protein on the market and a superb profile of essential amino acids, with only four carb grams and zero fat. To get started, eat three meals daily and drink a protein shake one to three times a day, in between meals. Is there a better way to intake muscle-building protein? Your carbohydrate foods should include both starchy and fibrous carbo-hydrates. High quality starches include potatoes, rice, corn, and beans. Fibrous vegetables include salad greens, broccoli, green beans, and so on. Fiber and protein are the constants of the Parrillo approach to performance eating. Starch is modu-lated up or down to trigger muscle gain (bulking) or fat loss (cutting).

The Parrillo Performance Nutrition Manual goes into exhaustive detail explaining which foods to eat and how to combine them appropri-ately at meals. Meal frequency is a hugely important component of our performance eating philosophy. It works best to eat frequently so your muscles will always have a ready supply of nutrients to sup-port growth. Try eating five or six meals a day. Each solid food meal should include a protein source, a starch and a fiber. If you’re wondering how to include a good fiber source with breakfast, try oatmeal . While primarily a starch, it also supplies a lot of fiber and is perfectly ac-ceptable for the serious performance eat-er. Bodybuilders, in my experience, eat more oatmeal than any other identifiable group. Supplements are a very effective way to support growth. We offer a wide variety of products and choosing among them is sometimes perplexing. The most widely used are Optimized Whey Pro-tein™, Hi-Protein Powder™, Pro-Carb™, 50-50 Plus™, CapTri®, and the Parrillo Bars™ . CapTri® is an interesting supple-ment that can be used to bulk up or rip up . CapTri® is a special type of dietary fat that follows a different metabolic pathway than conventional fat. While conventional fat is preferentially stored as body fat, especially during times of ca-loric surplus, CapTri® has very little ten-dency to be stored as body fat. CapTri® is rapidly converted to ketones that are used as fuel to supply energy for your training. It also spares protein and carbohydrates thereby allowing spared nutrients to be used to fuel muscular growth and hasten recovery.

If you are naturally thin and want to gain size, clean carbohydrates would be the best choice to supply extra calories. Carbohydrates cause your body to pro-duce insulin, a powerful anabolic hor-mone. The problem with insulin is that it can easily promote fat if used in excess. Pro-Carb Formula™ is a medium to short-chain starch that provides a very favorable insulin profile. If you need a carbohydrate supplement, this is an excellent choice. 50-50 Plus™ is 20 grams of protein and 17 grams of carbohydrate per serving. This combination of nutrients has been shown to be very effective at supporting muscular growth, especially when used immediately after training. If you have money for only one supplement consider one of our protein powders. If you need to gain quality size then consider 50-50 Plus™. There is no single right answer to the dilemma of dieting and diet details should be customized in each individual circumstance. Consult your Parrillo Nutri-tion Manual for the basic commandments of performance eating as the Manual goes into great detail about how to construct a diet to meet your specific needs. And if you still have questions, give us a call. We’re here to help . The Parrillo Sports Nutrition Bars™, En-ergy Bars™ and Protein Bars™ are all ex-cellent formulations; each with a slightly different profile and each provide an ex-cellent combination of protein, carbohy-drates and CapTri®.

They are convenient: you don’t need to make a meal or mix a drink to get clean nutrients in a hurry. Just put one in your gym bag, attaché case, purse, pocket, desk or glove compart-ment and you have a precisely formu-lated muscle snack whenever you need it. Bars are another way to continually flood the muscles with nutrients, provide the calories needed to support muscle growth and keep you in positive nitrogen bal-ance and away from catabolism. Don’t forget Creatine Monohydrate. Creatine makes your muscles bigger and stronger in a many different ways. It does not supply calories instead it enters muscle cells and acts as an energy donor to sup-ply ATP, the fuel used to power muscle contractions. Creatine has been shown to increase strength as well as high intensity exercise endurance. Also, it attracts water into the muscle cells and this makes them noticeably bigger. 70% of first time Cre-atine users experience a muscular weight gain of between 3-10 pounds within the first month or two of using it. Strength gains of 10-15% are common. We have the best Creatine available so call our 800-number and experience the magic of Creatine Monohydrate for yourself. Good luck until next month!

Bulletin #42 – Creatine: Why Has This Become A Must Supplement For Bodybuilders

We are excited to announce a newproduct to our supplement line—ParrilloPerformance Creatine Monohydrate™.During the last year several reports haveappeared in the scientific literature docu-menting the effectiveness of creatine inincreasing muscle mass, strength, andendurance (1-6). We’ve been doing ourown trials here as well and have seen im-pressive results.What is creatine, and how does itwork? You’ll recall last year I did a seriesof articles about cellular energy metabo-lism and explained the biochemistry in-volved in some detail. Briefly, the imme-diate source of energy for all cellular ac-tivity, including muscle contraction, is amolecule called ATP. This stands for ad-enosine triphosphate, which is the nucleo-side adenosine with three phosphategroups attached.

Parrillo Performance
800-344-3404 

The phosphate groupscontain negative electrical charges, andsince negative charges repel each otherthe molecule is inherently unstable. Inother words, the negative charges pushagainst each other and try to tear the mol-ecule apart. When one of the phosphategroups breaks free, energy is released.During the process of muscle contrac-tion this energy is transferred to the actinand myosin filaments which make up themuscle fiber. This results in a change inthe three dimensional configuration (i.e.,the shape) of the filaments, causing themto slide past each other. When this hap-pens the muscle contracts. When ATPloses one of its phosphate groups it formsadenosine diphosphate, or ADP, plus afree phosphate group. Thus muscle con-traction is powered by the breakdown ofATP to ADP.Food provides two basic purposes forthe body. It provides the building blocksthat body tissues are made from, and itsupplies energy to fuel the body. Thechemical energy contained in food is usedto form ATP. As you know, food is oxi-dized, or burned, in the body to releaseenergy. This energy is used to form ATP,which then goes on to power cellular ac-tivity. The body’s stores of ATP are verylimited. In fact, each muscle cell containsonly enough ATP to power contractionsfor a few seconds. Therefore, ATP mustbe continuously regenerated. That’s wherecreatine fits in. Creatine itself binds a phos-phate group, forming creatine phosphate,or CP.

When ATP is broken down to ADP,creatine phosphate steps in and donatesits phosphate group to ADP, regeneratingan ATP molecule (1). This allows highenergy muscle contractions to continue.After about 45 seconds to 2 minutes (de-pending on the intensity of effort) the cre-atine phosphate is also used up, and powerproduction by the muscle rapidly declines.This is what happens when you fail at theend of a set – you’ve used up all yourATP and CP, which means you’re out offuel. This is also why high intensity weightlifting sets usually last about a minute be-fore you fail. After the CP is used up, ATPcannot be regenerated fast enough tomaintain a high level of intensity. Lowerintensity exercise (aerobic exercise likebike riding) can be continued almost in-definitely because you can generate CPand ATP fast enough to keep up with theenergy demands of the activity.You’ll notice our creatine is in theform of creatine monohydrate. Why don’twe just use creatine phosphate or ATP it-self as a supplement instead? Simply put,because it doesn’t work.

Triphosphatemolecules such as CP and ATP are notabsorbed through the intestine. To reachthe bloodstream nutrient molecules mustfirst cross the membranes of the cells lin-ing the gut and then the cells forming thecapillaries. Cell membranes are made oflipids, which are hydrophobic. This meansthey repel molecules with a strong elec-tric charge like ATP and CP. If you feedsomeone ATP or CP it must be brokendown before it can be absorbed. Creatinemonohydrate is readily absorbed, how-ever, and does in fact reach the musclecell when administered orally (2). This iswhy it can be used as an effective supple-ment. Once inside the muscle cell it isconverted to creatine phosphate. Whatabout the sublingual route? This is bogus,since the molecule still has to cross cellmembranes to reach the circulation. Whatabout liquid creatine? Doubly bogus, sincecreatine tends to break down when storedas a solution.Creatine occurs naturally in meat,especially red meat. This is probably themain reason red meat has a reputation forincreasing strength. No other foods are agood source of creatine, and this is whyvegetarians are often creatine deficient.The problem is to get a significant amountof creatine you would have to eat a lot ofred meat, which would bring with it a tonof fat.

Creatine supplementation allowsyou to get much higher levels of creatinein your muscle than you could ever getfrom conventional food, and without sup-plying any fat.Though much of the creatine used by our muscles is obtained through diet, ithas also been found that the body cancreate its own creatine in a two-reactionextramuscular sequence. Starting in thekidney, arginine and glycine undergotransamidination, creating guanidinoaceticacid and ornithine. The guanidinoaceticacid is then methylated by S-adenosylmethionine in the liver, creatingcreatine, which is then shipped off forusage in the muscle. So the creatine poolin the muscle is really a composite of theamount synthesized by the body, whichis about one gram/day, and the rest re-ceived through dietary sources, most no-tably from meat (1,2,3).So how does creatine increase musclesize and strength? It increases strengthby increasing the intracellular levels ofcreatine and creatine phosphate, whichallows more rapid ATP production. Thismeans more energy is available to the cell,allowing it to work harder. This samemechanism explains why creatine in-creases endurance performance too. Ifyou increase the creatine pool inside themuscle this increases the cell’s energyreserve, allowing longer, as well as morepowerful, contractions. Creatine is verypopular among endurance athletes, and iswidely used in track and field.Creatine increases muscle size be-cause it attracts water. Creatine is ab-sorbed into the muscle cell and pulls a lotof water along with it, causing the muscleto swell. This results in larger, firmermuscles and a better pump. Please realizethat creatine itself does not directly in-crease muscle protein. As with all supple-ments, it is vital that you use creatine inconjunction with a solid bodybuilding diet.You need protein to build muscle tissueand carbohydrates to provide energy. Cre-atine itself is not burned to produce en-ergy, rather it acts as an energy buffer totransfer the energy derived from carbo-hydrate and fat oxidation to ATP. Creatineis not incorporated into protein. It will,however, indirectly increase the proteinmass of muscles over time by allowingyou to perform higher intensity workouts.

That is, of course, if you are eating enoughlean protein and quality calories to sup-port muscle gains. .What can you expect from creatine?Typically in hard-training bodybuilders,we observe an increase of 4-14 poundsof lean mass during the first month ofusing creatine. This is remarkable. Thisdoes not mean you have to consume 4-14 pounds of creatine. Remember, mostof the weight gain and size increase comesfrom water. Creatine is stored in musclecells, where it attracts water. The moremuscle mass you have to start with, themore creatine you can assimilate and themore weight you will gain from using cre-atine. Small bodybuilders usually gain 4-6pounds and the really big guys gain 10-14pounds. We have verified that this weightgain shows up as an increase in lean bodymass when you do body composition test-ing. Remember that lean mass is a mea-sure of everything in your body that’s notfat, including the skeleton and muscle,including water. It’s hard to imagine any-body happier than a bodybuilder whogains 10 pounds of lean mass in one month.Regarding performance, we’ve seenathletes experience a 5-15% increase instrength on their maximum lifts, and anincrease of about 2 reps per set with theirworking weight. This increase in trainingintensity allows you to put a greater loadon the muscle, which will indeed increaseyour gains in muscle protein mass overtime. The amount of strength gain eachindividual can make may differ consider-ably, because the strength of your ten-dons also determines how much weightthe muscle can lift. While it seems clearthat creatine will allow faster and greatergains in size and strength over the long-term, firm numbers cannot be attached atthe onset.

A lot is dependant on whetheryou are eating enough protein and calo-ries to support gains. Remember, creat-ine itself has little impact on gaining musclewhen taken alone. The building blocks(amino acids) and extra calories must alsobe present in the muscle for serious gainsto be made. Most people will see a sig-nificant increase in size and strength whenusing creatine, but a lot of this dependson the amount of protein and quality calo-ries you are eating. If you don’t eat enoughto support muscle gain, you won’t seeany, it’s that simple. But with a solid, high-calorie, high-protein diet and intense train-ing, your muscle gains can be incredible.Regarding endurance exercise, we’ve seenathletes experience a 5-10% increase inspeed and a 10-20% increase in time tofatigue.What’s the down side? As explained,most of the immediate weight gain result-ing from creatine supplementation happensduring the first month when you’re load-ing the muscle cells with creatine. Youwill experience an immediate gain instrength at the outset because of the in-creased leverage advantage from the in-creased water gain as well as the creatinephosphate stores. At some point the cre-atine pool becomes saturated and themuscle can’t hold any more. So you canexpect a very rapid and dramatic gain inlean mass (muscle + water) for the firstmonth, but after that creatine supplemen-tation is mainly maintenance. Remember,proper nutrition from food, increasedcalories and nutrients from supplementsand intense training are the keys to pack-ing on more muscle month after month,year after year. By using creatine you canimprove the intensity and duration of yourtraining for better overall workouts. Andwhen you add to this proper nutrition, which includes plenty of high quality pro-tein and increased calories, you’ll be righton track to gain one pound of lean masseach week.How do I use creatine? As with nearlyall supplements, actual usage will varyfrom person to person and will likelychange as your body and training changes.

To start out we recommend for the firstone to two weeks you use 20-30 grams aday divided into even servings taken witheach meal, or with a Hi-Protein™/Pro-Carb™ drink. This is the loading phase.One scoop or heaping teaspoon is fivegrams, so one of these with each mealis about right. Use the lower end ofthese ranges if you’re 150-200 pounds,and the upper end if you’re over 200pounds. We recommend one to twoweeks, but the loading phase may takeas many as four weeks. When you findthat you’re really getting a good pump,the loading phase has filled the creat-ine stores in your muscle. After that,5-10 grams a day is enough to main-tain your creatine stores. Cycling cre-atine is of no advantage. If you stoptaking creatine you simply deplete yourexisting store, which takes 4-8 weeks.The best way to take creatine is to mixit with a scoop of Hi-Protein Powder™or Pro-Carb™ and drink it immedi-ately. It’s also fine to mix it in plainwater. Don’t be concerned that creat-ine doesn’t dissolve fully; just drink thesuspension. Even though it doesn’t dis-solve completely, it gets absorbed verywell. Don’t mix creatine in water toofar in advance of when you take it, sinceit begins to break down. A great way topack creatine is to take a shaker bottlewith a scoop of Hi-Protein™ or Pro-Carb™ plus a scoop of creatine and put itin your gym bag or cooler. Then just addwater, shake, and drink. Another conve-nient way to use creatine is to mix it intooatmeal. Creatine has no flavor, but it is alittle grainy.Are there any medical concerns withtaking creatine? Creatine is nontoxic evenwhen taken in huge doses.

The onlyknown side effect is stomach upset if youtake too much at once. Five to ten gramsshouldn’t bother you. If you take 30 gramsat once you might feel stomach crampsor nausea, but usually not. Excess creat-ine is converted into creatinine (note thesimilar spelling) and excreted in the urine.If you take too much creatine you’ll justlose the excess in your urine. If you haveany blood work done you might find thatcreatine elevates your creatinine level.Doctors use the creatinine level in theblood as an index of kidney function. Ifyour doctor notices an increase in yourcreatinine level and expresses some con-cern about your kidneys, tell him or herthat you’re using creatine. Creatine doesnot damage the kidneys in any way, but iscontraindicated if you have pre-existingsevere kidney disease (for example, renaldialysis or kidney transplant patients).People with severe kidney disease havetrouble eliminating creatinine, and creat-ine supplementation would increase crea-tinine levels further.How does creatine fit into yoursupplement program? Creatine shouldabsolutely be a core supplement for anyserious bodybuilder, powerlifter, or endur-ance athlete. Bodybuilders and powerliftersshould use it year round, and definitelybefore a contest. I guarantee your com-petition will be using it. Endurance ath-letes should use it during training and com-petition. If you’re not a serious athlete butsimply someone trying to lose fat and stayin shape, then you don’t necessarily needit. There’s no evidence that creatine, byitself, aids fat loss. But as you gain extramuscle and increase you metabolism, youultimately will burn more body fat. So in-directly, it can help in body fat loss.The core supplements for bodybuild-ers and strength athletes are EssentialVitamin Formula™, Mineral-Electro-lyte Formula™, CapTri®, CreatineMonohydrate™, Liver-Amino™, andHi-Protein Powder™. Pro-Carb™should be added for those bodybuild-ers with trouble gaining weight. GHFormula™, Muscle Amino For-mula™, and Ultimate Amino™ are ap-propriate for competitive bodybuild-ers.

Liver-Amino Formula™ shouldbe increased for strength athletes, es-pecially in the months leading to a con-test. The core supplements for endur-ance athletes are the Vitamin and Min-eral Formulas™, Liver-Amino For-mula™, CapTri®, and Creatine Mono-hydrate™. The combination of Liver-Amino Formula™ and Creatine Mono-hydrate™ is key for endurance, and Iwould go as far as to say they areessential for an endurance athlete toreach his ultimate potential. Hi-Pro-tein Powder™ should be strongly consid-ered for any endurance athlete who’s los-ing weight or training at the edge. Extremetraining can elevate the protein require-ments of endurance athletes above thoseof even bodybuilders. Endurance athletesexperiencing over-training or a decreasein performance likely need more protein.Collegiate level and professional enduranceathletes should add Max-Endurance For-mula™. The core supplements for peopleon the fat loss program are the Vitaminand Mineral Formulas™, CapTri®, andAdvanced Lipotropic Formula™. Of course, the diet is fundamental to every-one. The Parrillo Bar works well on anyof these programs as a meal replacementor as a source of extra calories for ath-letes trying to gain weight or who needmore energy. Endurance cyclists also findthe Parrillo Bar very useful. Finally, cre-atine should be considered a core supple-ment for all vegetarian athletes. Althoughthe human body makes about one gramof creatine a day by itself (creatine is en-dogenously synthesized in the kidney andliver) vegetarians have a reduced creatinepool because their diet does not provideany additional creatine (1,2,3). Vegetar-ians stand to benefit greatly from creatinesupplementation (1,2,3).With this background on what creat-ine is, how it works, and how to use it,let’s take a brief look at some of the stud-ies of creatine use in athletes.

One testlooked at the effect of creatine versus pla-cebo on performance of 5 bouts of 30maximal voluntary contractions on anisokinetic dynamometer (4). The groupreceiving 24 grams of creatine a day for5 days experienced greater torque produc-tion, which means greater power produc-tion. In another study 30 grams of creat-ine a day for 6 days was given to a groupof endurance athletes (5). During a seriesof four 1,000 meter runs the total timewas improved by 13 seconds in the cre-atine group, with an improvement of 5.5seconds during the last run. Another pla-cebo-controlled trial showed an increasein anaerobic capacity on a cycle ergom-eter after 4 days of creatine at 20 gramsper day (6). These studies demonstrate ameasurable increase in peak power pro-duction and endurance performance dur-ing intense exercise following as little as4-6 days of creatine supplementation. Theeffects of creatine seem to be most pro-nounced during very intense exercise. Notmuch of an effect has been noted in pro-longed, low intensity exercise. This is justwhat you would expect given the role ofcreatine in cellular energy production.During low intensity exercise, energy pro-duction from carbohydrate and fat oxida-tion can keep up with the rate of energyexpenditure. Creatine increases exerciseperformance by sustaining energy pro-duction, and thus work production, dur-ing high intensity exercise (2). Creatinesupplementation has been shown to re-duce the rate of ATP depletion duringmaximal exercise while simultaneouslyincreasing work output (2).Sure, creatine is a terrific supplementfor increasing lean mass and strength. Butcreatine is not some magic potion formuscle gains. Not too long ago I beganworking with a bodybuilder who wasspending a large portion of his limitedbudget on creatine. Sure, his workoutswere great, but his gains were insignifi-cant compared to the effort he was put-ting into his training.

Why? Because hiscaloric base was too low. Everything hewas eating was being used for energy tofuel his workouts, with little to nothingleft for lean mass gains. So what did wedo? First, we got his diet in order, increas-ing his protein and calorie intake with goodfood. Next, we took the money he wasspending on creatine and put that intoCapTri®, Hi-Protein™ and Pro-Carb™.These supplements increased his caloricbase even more than the food alone, pro-viding his body with the necessary en-ergy and amino acids for growth. Somuch so, he was able to gain 30 poundsof lean mass in three months time.The reason I tell this story is not todiscourage you from using creatine. Butrather, to put it into perspective as far asyour nutrition and training are concerned.If you’re not eating enough and provid-ing the necessary nutrients for growth,your body will not be able to maximizethe potential effectiveness of this supple-ment. But if your nutrition is good, ifyou’re providing your body with the calo-ries and protein it needs for energy andgrowth, and if you’re training hard, cre-atine can be of great benefit in terms ofincreasing size, strength and performance.In summary, creatine has been shownin placebo-controlled clinical trials to im-prove exercise performance, both interms of power output and endurance (1-6). We know from our work here that itincreases lean body mass as well. Creat-ine is stored in the muscle and does notcontribute to fat stores. Any weight yougain on creatine will be in the lean com-partment. We’ve seen many athletes ex-perience dramatic gains in muscle size andstrength during their first month of creat-ine use. And when you look for a goodcreatine supplement, make sure it is 100%pure, like our Parrillo Performance Cre-atine Monohydrate™ supplement. Makesure to look at the nutrient content on thelabel and not just the price when you’reconsidering which creatine supplement totake. Parrillo Performance Creatine Mono-hydrate™—one more nutritional tool tohelp you push your physique and perfor-mance envelope.

References

1. Maughan RJ. Creatine supplemen-tation and exercise performance. Interna-tional Journal of Sport Nutrition 5: 94-101,1995.

2. Greenhaff PL. Creatine and its ap-plication as an ergogenic aid. InternationalJournal of Sport Nutrition 5: S100-S110,1995.

3. Crim MC, Munro HN. Proteins andAmino Acids. Modern Nutrition in Healthand Disease 8: 9-10, 1994.

4. Greenhaff PL, Casey A, Short AH,Harris AC, Soderlund K, and Hultman E.Influence of oral creatine supplementationon muscle torque during repeated boutsof maximal voluntary exercise in man.Clin. Sci. 84: 565-571, 1993.

5. Harris RC, Viru M, Greenhaff PL,and Haltman E. The effect of oral creat-ine supplementation on running perfor-mance during maximal short term exer-cise in man. J. Physiol. 467: 74P, 1993.

6. Ernest CP, Snell PG, Mitchell TL,Rodriguez R, and Almada AL. Effect ofcreatine monohydrate on peak anaerobicpower, capacity, and fatigue index. Med.Sci. Sports. Exerc. 26: S39, 1994.