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Me neither. Maybe it's for the types of people that have muscles with too low of a fluid content and creatine improves on that and adds better "leverage" if you will for the muscle fibers to push against?

Ehhh...  It probably works by the mechanism supported by all the evidence (more creatine phosphate in the muscle = more alactic ATP).   I doubt the reason some of us don't respond is not because creatine actually works by some until now undiscovered mechanism...

For what it's worth I have multiple anecdotal cases of creatine not working for track athletes speed endurance.  A 200m/400m athlete should benefit most from a longer alactic energy system... but creatine seems to work best in the untrained and those who do little training as far as these energy systems go (powerlifters, etc.)  The only reason I can think is that maybe it's possible that through training one can acquire an efficient enough alactic energy system (and transition to anerobic respiration) that additional creatine does not help, perhaps because the body is beginning respiration after a few seconds anyway, so either you get enough free atp and muscle efficiency to produce the maximum power you body can produce before anerobic respiration through training OR you supplement with creatine to provide the ATP.   As far as training recovery I am not convinced by any study that creatine increases recovery.

Well I got my creatine today so we'll see how I'm performing in a month or so. Took 5g after training and another 1-2g before bed. Will take 5g daily for the next week and maybe drop it down to 3g from then.

Track (tues):

1200m jog, dynamic warmup

Starting drills (falling starts, crouch starts)

2x30m block starts

3x50m block starts

Some overspeed work with cable (4 tows, 4 getting towed approx 50m)

Cool-down UB weights

BW: 78kgs

Track/gym (yesterday):

Dynamic warmup (+5kg weight vest)

2x5 consec broad jumps (+5kg weight vest)

2x4-5/leg SL bounds (+5kg weight vest)

Few broad jumps (+5kg weight vest)

8 shotput throws (did some DSVJs at a nearby ring between throws)

Speed squat: 4x15@40kgs in 15 seconds (aim was to do at least 15 reps in 15 secs)

Core/hamstring exercises in-between sets

Speed split jerk: 4x8-14@40kgs in 15 sec (struggled with this)

Power cleans: 1x7@50kgs

Bench: 1x10@65kgs

BW: 78kgs

Very hard training session. I really struggle with the rhythm for the split jerks. Need to practice. Also just very weak at it atm. I was already pretty cooked by the time we were doing shotput throws, only hitting ~31'' for my DSVJs.

So you're not loading up on creatine the first 4-5 days? I took 20-25g the first few days and then maintained at 5g.

I'm not doing that this time. From what I've read, you can just take a 5g dose from the start and maintain that for about a month to fill up the stores. It takes a bit longer than doing a 20g/day load for a week, but A) I'm not in a rush to fill up, and B) although it's generally been shown to be safe, higher doses could possibly have some side effects which I'd rather avoid. I can't remember if I logged this but last year when I got a really bad tension headache and went to ER, my urine sample had creatinine levels just outside the normal range and there was microscopic traces of blood in there as well. Granted, this was about 36h after I repped 135kgs for 6 at 78kgs, which might have caused a high level of creatine-->creatinine in my urine. The blood traces were there up until about 3-4 days later. The doc said elevated creatinine levels can impair kidney function and cause some microscopic bleeding.

At that time, it appeared to be a short-term symptom from the headache. I don't have a family history of kidney dysfunction but just to be on the safe side, I'm just going to stick at 5g a day for awhile then drop to 3g as entropy suggested. It should be just as effective over a long-term period. Would love to hear opinions from the creatine users on this.

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Track:

800m jog, dynamic warmup

5x120m/80m fly (20m lead-in): 2 mins rest between reps, 15 mins between sets (35oC). 120m: 14.5sec avg, 80m: 9.2 sec avg

Cool-down UB weights

BW:77.5 kgs

I'm not going to overreact to two days of creatine but I did feel very 'powerful' tonight in the 80m sprints. I could maintain effort for about 10-20m longer than usual. I based this on a training partner who usually gets a slow start but catches me by the 50-60m mark; tonight he was only passing me in the last 10m of the 80m. Making some good progress. Training three nights in a row has left me pretty wrecked though, I've really had to push the recovery hard at nights to keep up.

 

Maybe you were overdosing on protein back then?

Possibly, I was taking more at that time when I was doing a lot more gym work. Probably not more than 2g/kg BW. At the moment I take about 140g per day. Again, it was a short-term symptom - a few days later it was clean. Either way, I'm happy with a low dose per day just in case.

I've been meaning to start a 5g a day creatine supplement (I'm with you on the 20+ loading phase :/ ) but Ive been lazy/un-dedicated/etc. Very curious to see your results!

Yep! We'll see.

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Competition was cancelled today because it was so hot goddamit. So we did a morning training session instead:

Track:

800m jog, dynamic warmup

Starting drills on the bend

4x40m block starts on bend

4x130m re-accelerations (had my last 40m timed twice - 5.0 and 5.1  )

Cool-down weights

BW: 78kgs

How fast are the 60 kg power cleans?

Yeah, for me, the hardest part is the full (hyper)extension at the hips... I still "shortmove" it.