How Does Creatine Affect Endurance Performance?

Question

I've come across various takes on the use of creatine for anaerobic athletes. Is it effective in enhancing their endurance performance?

Answer 1

The research done on the effect of creatine on endurance performance and its enhancement is various. There are some studies that suggest the substance may come in handy whilst there are also studies that bring no such implications. The improvements of creatine in the case of endurance competitors can be offered in a broader context including recovery & brain functions as well. Nevertheless, further studies would be needed in order to reach convincing answers.

Comments

Wouldn't it help in long endurance races with cramping though? Having your muscles hold more water weight meaning less cramps?

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With the improvement to your 30 second to 1 minute sprint times, does it make you want to train those more?

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My normal rides are 8 miles give or take so shorter rides, i feel like the creatine helps me quite a bit. It helps smooth it out if you will. Those little climbs are easier, climbs easier equals better rides. Equals happier me.  

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I do triathlons and I use creatine throughout training and stop taking it 2 weeks before a big race. I don’t need the peak power benefits during a race and I loose a couple pounds of inter-muscular water weight. It’s worked well so far

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Been using for 2 months. Just taking it mentally makes me work out more and harder. I see results, just not sure how much the gains are. I am also 50 ride 3-4 times a week

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Interesting. I wonder if it would benefit my performance and development as a combined MTB, trail runner and rower- more than a roadbiker. Think it might, since all of those include burst intervals...

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What you should have tested is the power across multiple efforts of 30 or 60 seconds, because what creatine helps with is being able to do this high power bursts again and again, not just once. So it would be interesting to see how big the difference is if you did 10 of those efforts, on the 10th effort.