Thread: Cycling Creatine

If you run a search, you will probably find limited info on, what do you call it again? creatine? There are only 10 billion threads on creatine

Originally Posted by Phoenix Drake

I would like to know for how many weeks can I safely use creatine for at a time? How long should I stay off it between cycles? Do I have to re-load it into my sytem and if I will loose the weight I gained while on it during the off cycle? Lastly, what do you guys think about using creatine and glutamine together?

LOL...... well hes proly new, no harm done. Lemme see if I can take a stab at this.




First off, let me tell you that different people have different ideas on everything. Ok? What Im about to say should be a guideline, nothing more. If you're talking creatine monohydrate, to me that is the worst form of creatine. TO ME. Others can and will disagree. The reasons are that there are what I consider to be better forms of creatine, the best of which is tricreatine malate( I'll get to that in a second). The other reason is that with monohydrate you have just too many headaches. Figuratively, not neccessarily literaly. You have to load (some may say you dont), Ive heard you get cramps, and worst of all; water retention.

Tricreatine malate does none of those things. The best for my money is SwoleV2, by Syntrax, followed closely by V12, by SAN. With these there is no loading phase and no headaches. You simply take it 6-8 hours apart (dont split hairs, its not gonna kill you to not get it exact) and thats it. Swole is cheaper and is not as mind numbingly sweet as V12, but it gives the same results. In MY case I got better results with Swole than V12. So far whats worked for me is to cycle 2 tubs back to back, and then lay off for about 4-6 weeks. But others will say shorter or longer. Its really as simple as that. You can find Swole for about 35 bucks delivered most anywhere you look. Try google to see what site is best for you.

Thank you Metal for your help. Some members here make it seem as they have never needed help or have gotten confused about a supplement before. I believe that we are here to help each other not to be assholes to one another. Anyway, one again, thank you Metal for your help.

Originally Posted by Metal V Player

You have to load (some may say you dont), Ive heard you get cramps, and worst of all; water retention.

This is a marketing ploy. Tricreatine Malate manufacturers state that they do not cause subcutaneous water retention, which monohydrate does not either. Monohydrate causes intramuscular water retention which is actually pretty good for the intramuscular environment. I believe that this is due to an increase in PCr, but am not sure. If this is the case, than in order for tricreatine malate to even work, it would also have to cause intramuscular water retention since PCr is the only high energy phosphate creatine will have a direct effect on.

Of note is that Tricreatine Malate manufacturers do not even mention intramuscular water retention.


The other notion of non-responders is actually quite interesting. Bioavailibility of creatine is quite high, so getting it in to the system is relatively easy. Therefore different transport methods or forms are overrated with the exception of carbohydrate ingestion. Most studies show that a nonresponder is typically someone who already has high levels of endogenous creatine. Since the body can only use so much, taking it in a different form would not be effective.

Now, to Tricreatine Malate...
It is theorized that the creatine portion of this little supplement is no more effective that monohydrate, which is most likely true. What it does have in addition to creatine is malic acid, which is important in reduction reactions in energy production. This is probably the reason people see improvement with Tricreatine Malate over Creatine Monohydrate.

To be cheap, as I am, you could get creatine and malic acid both at their effective doses for 60 days less than the price of 25 days of tricreatine Malate.

This is fantastic, Dale!! Really, really informative. Im going to copy and paste this to notepad and use it for reference. Thanks a lot, bro.

No prob, man.