I'm able to do a few more reps and recover a bit faster between sets and from one session to the next. That will definitely have a positive impact on muscle mass in the medium/long term.
I think this study may have been too flawed to reach a strong conclusion.
> After the 7-day wash-in, both groups followed the same RT program that comprising 3 full-body sessions a week for 12 weeks...
> For all assessments, participants reported to the Exercise Physiology Research Lab (UNSW Sydney, Australia) at the same time of day between 8 h and 9 h following an 8-h fast which included refraining from all liquids except water...
So extra stamina isn't rewarded due to the same workout plan and conventional wisdom on insulin and its effect on muscle absorption of creatine is completely ignored due to the 8 hour fasting period.
This study seems to paint creatine as a magic muscle bullet where it seems to be common knowledge in the fitness community that it aids recovery and stamina. I have my doubts.
Anecdotally I do also notice a cognitive impact when taking it, e.g. I seem to have improved concentration. Or more that when I have stopped taking it I have decreased concentration. Anecdata 1 of 1.
If you've never felt like your body was beat up for 1-2 days afterwards, then I'd suggest you've never pushed your exertion level high enough. You can certainly make good progress relatively far away from failure up to a certain point, but eventually that won't be good enough. I'd suggest your overall volume on the muscle you're hitting probably wasn't high enough. If you're just sticking to 3x5 with a simple progression, then that's pretty limiting.
If you do a lot of activity, the amount of exertion can be measured in EPOC - how much extra oxygen your body needs for the extra metabolism to support repair (this is when any gains happen, growth, endurance, efficiency). When that’s back to baseline your body has done repairing, you’ve “recovered”.
If you aren’t recovered, your body still hasn’t repaired the damage you’ve done to it in the previous round, and you probably won’t be able to repeat the effort, whichever discipline. You’re digging yourself deeper in a hole. If you keep doing this, that’s overtraining, and you can get worse.
If you never experienced this, congratulations, you were operating inside your body’s natural limits! You may have good genes, and having good sleep and nutrition is probably more important than supplements.
You weren't loading enough. At my max weights (600lbs Deadlift, 400lbs Squat, 340 Bench) , I needed to take 2-3 days off minimum
Maybe I wasn't pushing myself hard enough, but I also never got injured. How much more could I have realistically achieved by pushing harder? I don't think much. I got really put off trying so hard when I realised how many people were on gear.
Were you having issues with plateaus at all?
If you're repping things with no problem, you're at the your current "optimal" level so yeah, you won't feel like you need to recover.
Like in cardio, I could rip out a half-marathon at a 8:00m pace and feel fine the next day, but try and reach 7:30 and I would be shattered.
At 30, probably better not to try and go too ham, but you have plenty of room to get much stronger. I don't know why other people using gear influenced you. Get fit for yourself, fuck the others.
I find the whole thing super fake now. People eating 5 chickens a week that were slaughtered for them in horrible conditions. Burning fossil fuels to move their obese body to the gym every day to go do pretend work in air conditioned boxes. Tell themselves BMI is bullshit and doesn't work for extremely muscular outliers like them and they're just "bulking" and that somehow eating 3000+ calories a day is good for them. Oh and I guess tell themselves that not being able to walk after a workout is somehow good for them.
Nowadays I walk, run and cycle outside, do calisthenics at home, do intermittent fasting every single day, eat delicious food, remain shredded, take no supplements and still have my hair.
Gyms are good for adults to train from the general blob like form we all seem to regress to after childhood into the form they always should have been. I think the ideal would be just maintaining childhood strength all the way into adulthood, so just doing exercise basically. Gyms are only necessary because there are adults with so little functional strength that they'd injure themselves if they tried to do a single dip or lift a box.
Standard strength goals should be being able to walk 30km, 1000m ascent with a 10kg pack. Being able to cycle 100 miles. Being able to lift your own bodyweight from a dead hang. Being able to lift a 100kg box shaped load etc. Real strength.
I'm not saying nobody should do it for a sport, though. I love strongman (specifically World's Strongest Man). But you have to realise to compete there you need to be on copious amounts of gear, just like any other sport. You just have to be real with yourself about what your goals are.
I recover so much better when on roughly 5mg of Creatine for an extended period of time versus when I am not taking any. I also very clearly notice added water weight. That recovery leads to better training sessions which in turn leads to increased muscle and strength.
The difference in water retention and recovery is measurable whether doing a PPL or something like Tactical Barbell blocks.. call me crazy.
EDIT: 5g not 5mg