Strong and Sexy is our monthly feature from Molly Galbraith of Girls Gone Strong and it features questions from readers of the TPS newsletter. Molly will answer at least one question each month on topics geared towards our female readers. Ladies, get those questions ready and reply back to the newsletter with them.
Molly Galbraith
“How does Creatine affect women? Good/Bad?” – Anonymous
This is an excellent question, and one that I get often from my female clients who are looking to increase muscle and strength. Over the years, rumors and old wives’ tales about women and creatine have swirled throughout the weightlifting community, such as:
“Creatine is like steroids!”
“Creatine will make you fat!”
“Creatine is just for men!”
I’ll admit, I’ve actually fallen prey to a creatine myth or two (“Creatine makes you bloated and it’s not good for women!”).
Luckily I have wonderful friends like Cassandra Forsythe-Pribanic, PhD, RD, who has changed my thinking and can also shed some educated light on these myths. Cassandra wrote a well-referenced article for Figure Athlete several years ago with Jen Heath, and she shares some of the bullet points from that article below:
1. Creatine is nothing like steroids. It’s actually a naturally-occurring substance in foods such as red meat and fish. It can also be made in your body, primarily the liver. In supplement form, it’s an odorless, tasteless white powder which acts nothing like a “steroid” in your body.
2. Creatine will not make you fat, unless you change your diet drastically when you start taking it (like eating more food than you need). What creatine can do is aid in muscle gain, and therefore there’s a chance your scale weight will increase. But there is nothing about creatine specifically that will “make you fat.” If you do experience any change in body weight, it could be from water retention, but scientific studies show that creatine itself does not cause water weight gain, but rather can be the excess sugar calories often taken with it (note: you do not need to “load” creatine, or take it with a sugary drink for it to be effective).
3. Creatine is absolutely not just for men, unless it’s only men who want an extra boost in their muscle mass and strength levels! Studies have shown that creatine can increase maximal strength gains as well as increase women’s performance during short-duration high-intensity work.
4. Creatine is absolutely safe for women as the research confirms its safety for the heart, muscles, and all organs.
Long story short, creatine is a safe and effective way to help women who train hard and heavy gain strength and muscle mass quicker than without. Most experts recommend 3 to 5 grams of creatine a day with meals and/or in your post workout shake, and as stated above, a loading phase is not needed. You should start seeing positive benefits within 2 to 4 weeks.
Leave A Comment