KR10 Creatine - Additional Information

What is Creatine?

Creatine is a natural constituent of a normal diet. Muscle foods such as steak and sushi are often quoted as being high in Creatine. However, vegetarian sources do exist, juniper berries being a particularly good example. Creatine is found in high concentrations in human muscle where it plays an important part in the energy production process. Normally this Creatine is provided from the diet but the body does have the ability to manufacture Creatine from the amino acids Arginine, Glycine and Methionine.
It appears that because of the changes in people’s dietary habits they are receiving less Creatine in their diet and have a sub optimal store of Creatine in the muscle. This is especially so for vegetarian athletes. By supplementing Creatine in the diet it is possible to increase the Creatine in muscle and improve performance.

What does Creatine do?

Athletes require a continual supply of energy for high performance activity. This energy is supplied to the muscle in the form of ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). There is barely enough ATP to fuel more than a second of strenuous activity.
The body manufactures ATP from carbohydrate, fat and protein in the diet. Fat can be used to make a lot of ATP but this is a slow process. The body can manufacture ATP from carbohydrate far more quickly but even the break down of carbohydrate by anaerobic glycolysis cannot
provide ATP fast enough for very explosive events. When the body has a sudden increase in demand for energy it has to rely upon a bank of immediately available energy – the Creatine Phosphate Energy
System.
Creatine Phosphate can “donate” phosphate groups in order to re-charge ATP. The use of Creatine Phosphate to recharge ATP during sudden increases in energy demand gives time for Carbohydrate metabolism to be “fired up”. Then during less intense periods the energy from carbohydrate metabolism can be used to pay back into the Creatine bank to recharge the Creatine Phosphate. There is enough Creatine Phosphate to fuel about 5 seconds of a 100m sprint. As Creatine Phosphate can recycle ATP faster than Carbohydrate metabolism, the athlete can put out more power and accelerate faster when using Creatine Phosphate.




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