NO Improves the Effects of Creatine
Assuming you???ve got your diet and protein intake right (including a good protein powder or weight gainer), the best supplement you can use for strength and mass gains is a creatine product. Creatine now has a massive body of evidence supporting its safety and its ability to increase strength and muscle. A newer category of products is the nitric oxide (NO) category. NO is a gas produced in the body, which widens the blood vessels and has numerous other effects on nutrient delivery and muscle. These supplements usually contain arginine and citrulline and sometimes grape seed extracts, cocoa polyphenols and others. They often also contain stimulants like caffeine so they can be taken before workouts for increased energy.
Often NO products contain creatine and this would be expected to increase their effectiveness. A recent study looked at this combination to determine if these two types of products work better when combined. In this study, a research team who I???ve worked with in the past from the University of Saskatchewan gave three groups of subjects either creatine plus arginine and amino acids or creatine alone or a useless placebo drink for 10 days. The subjects were tested for power output and for maximum reps in three sets of the bench press. The results showed that adding arginine to creatine increased peak muscle power output more than creatine alone. The combination also resulted in the most reps in the bench press.
So it looks like we now have more evidence to back up the use of creatine with nitric oxide products. For further reading on NO products see the articles, ???Nitric Oxide (NO) Products Work???, ???One More Prop for NO Products??? and Arginine Does it Again!???
By Mark Gilbert, BSc
Creatine, arginine alpha-ketoglutarate, amino acid...[Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2008] - PubMed Result
Assuming you???ve got your diet and protein intake right (including a good protein powder or weight gainer), the best supplement you can use for strength and mass gains is a creatine product. Creatine now has a massive body of evidence supporting its safety and its ability to increase strength and muscle. A newer category of products is the nitric oxide (NO) category. NO is a gas produced in the body, which widens the blood vessels and has numerous other effects on nutrient delivery and muscle. These supplements usually contain arginine and citrulline and sometimes grape seed extracts, cocoa polyphenols and others. They often also contain stimulants like caffeine so they can be taken before workouts for increased energy.
Often NO products contain creatine and this would be expected to increase their effectiveness. A recent study looked at this combination to determine if these two types of products work better when combined. In this study, a research team who I???ve worked with in the past from the University of Saskatchewan gave three groups of subjects either creatine plus arginine and amino acids or creatine alone or a useless placebo drink for 10 days. The subjects were tested for power output and for maximum reps in three sets of the bench press. The results showed that adding arginine to creatine increased peak muscle power output more than creatine alone. The combination also resulted in the most reps in the bench press.
So it looks like we now have more evidence to back up the use of creatine with nitric oxide products. For further reading on NO products see the articles, ???Nitric Oxide (NO) Products Work???, ???One More Prop for NO Products??? and Arginine Does it Again!???
By Mark Gilbert, BSc
Creatine, arginine alpha-ketoglutarate, amino acid...[Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2008] - PubMed Result
