so one of the main questions I get from natural bodybuilders and bu training naturally is should I be using creatine to help me build muscle and get that really impressive physique and is creatine responsible for my being able to go from being 125 lounds to realizing my goal of being a successful natural bodybuilder now here’s the problem yes there are tons of studies out there that talk about the fact that creatine may help increase muscle mass but unfortunately in all of my years I have seen many studies that talk about a particular protocol that’s supposed to increase muscle mass that in the real world simply doesn’t work the other problem is the majority of your Fitness influencers who talk about how fantastic creatine is tend to be using drugs and those people who use drugs I’m not exactly sure if what they’re doing applies to someone who’s a natural bodybuilder as it’s hard to tell whether it’s the creatine that helped them get bigger and stronger or the drugs the other problem is the reality of the fitness industry as a bodybuilder or a personal trainer supplement sponsorship is pretty much how most people make their money and so no one wants to ever say anything bad about creatine because since almost every single major supplement company out there makes some form of creatine it would destroy all kinds of sponsorship and trying to make some money from affiliate marketing if you said something bad about creatine and that’s where I come in because I’m someone who will never endorse any form of supplementation or any product whatsoever it’s just not what I do but I also have about 27 years of experience with creatine I was there when it first came out I used it for many many years and a clients of uses as well and I have a lot of information as to whether it works or not and in this video I’m going to share with you my unbiased findings about what I have really seen in terms of does creatine really work for natural athlete so stay tuned let’s talk more about [Music] this so in this video we’re talking about creatine for natural bodybuilders and for those people training naturally does it really help build muscle M but before I go any further like thank everyone for tuning in especially be a onstop place for anyone drinking naturally without drugs or supplements thank you so much for all the continued support and do be sure to like subscribe and hit that Bell so you’re first time to get the new content as it comes out so creatine does it really work to help you build muscle and I’m not going to keep you in any suspense whatsoever I’m going to go right into my own personal Journey with creatine so first off I went from 125 lb to 1982 lb growing up P Trinidad with without almost any supplements whatsoever back then creatine did not exist so I’m going to start by saying that creatine was not responsible for my initial gains however when I came to United States creatine had just hit the market with this product called phosphagen HP and my training partner and I were really enthusiastic about the idea of using this new supplement that number one was natural and it was something that was also naturally occurring and something that your body makes so it wasn’t like you were taking something that was potentially dangerous like all those ridiculous pro hormones that came out data that I never took here was something that actually did look like it might work and so I bought one of the first Parts on the market I started using it I did the loading phase and after I did the maintenance phase and what did I see well it was difficult initially to figure out what I saw but my weight did go up in fact I was 247 lbs when I first started using phosphagen HP and I remember that because it was when I started using phosph and HP that I finally went over 250 lounds to my heaviest weight of all time at 252 lbs now in the gym I felt stronger and I was really enthusiastic also about using creatine but I also had a little bit of misgivings because it was very high in sugar the idea being if you took in sugar with your creatine it would help increase creatine uptake into the muscles and maybe it did but I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of drinking something sweet every single day and the loading pH was quite a lot for someone like me who even back then didn’t really consume processed sugar and so I facially took notes of every single workout I did how I felt how I looked and at 252 I didn’t exactly feel my best or look my best to be honest and it was at that point that I had my first competition here in the United States I one of the the first things my coach told me to do was take all supplements out including the creatine and so from my very first competition three months later what I looked the very best i’ ever looked in my entire life I was not using creatine and it was after that first competition that I decided against going back to using protein shakes because I didn’t like how it made me [Music] feel and I also didn’t like how the creatine make me feel but there were other creatine brands on the market which didn’t have sugars and I was going to try those and see if it worked and so I did I kept on using creatine ticking again meticulous notes of how I was doing until I went to see my physician and there was a bit of a problem with my creatinine levels they were a little bit on the elevated side now creatinine is used by physicians to figure out whether or not your kidneys are functioning normally or not and if the numbers are too high it could mean that there’s something wrong with your kidneys and since there is a potential for creatine to increase creatinine levels out of caution my doctor told me to stop using creatine and we would test again to see whether or not that was the cause of the higher creatin level and so after using creatine for about a year I stopped completely for a 4mon period because my creatin levels are still on the higher side and look for a video about that one of these days soon and back in those days like I said I was taking meticulous notes of every single workout I did everything I ate what I looked like day by day and here’s what I found after a year of using creatine when I stopped my strength stayed exactly the same my weight stayed exactly the same in terms of any differences in how many reptiles was able to get while using creatine in certain exercises versus not using creatine there were no differences whatsoever and as far as my appearance was concerned I didn’t look any different at Bears noting as well that I always stopped using creatine at least three months before every single bodybuilding competition that I ever did and equally important to note when I was filling my natural bodybuilding DVD I was not using any creatine whatsoever and so at no time when I really looked my best was I ever using creatine and after four months of not using creatine and looking over my notes I wasn’t exactly sure if this was something I should spending my money on and my determination was that creatine was not something was necessarily useful for me in terms of building muscle there is some water weight gain that some people experience when they use creatine and my initial use of the very sugary version of it did make me put on some weight and I did really feel pumped and stronger when I was using it which actually should be expected by someone drinking a sugary drink every single day and that feeling of being stronger and more pumped didn’t actually continue long term right can’t and good conscience discount that as not being a placebo effect because long-term use didn’t show any appreciable differences in my ability to build more muscle as a natural bodybuilder because Us in creatine now there were some studies back then that show that some people don’t necessarily respond to creatine as well as others and so the Natural Body builds where I was working with who are using creatine I never advise them to stop using it as it’s always a bad idea to take your own personal experience and think it’s going to work for the general population but here’s what I found over the years those who were using creatine didn’t look any different weren’t any stronger and didn’t make any more or less progress than those who are following their diet and were consistent with the training now there we’re talking about a statistically large number but we can see a statistically large number in the natural bodybuilding Community when creatine came out everyone started taking it in fact I don’t think there’s any natural bodybuilder today who probably not using creatine on a regular basis and as someone for whom natural bodybuilding has been part of his life for the past 30 years I can tell you as someone who been a competitor and a judge that there was no increase in the quality of physiques of the average natural bodybuilding competitor male or female when creatine became commercially available now there were some supplements on the market that did create a difference in how natural bodybuilders look and look out for a fascinating video about that coming up in the very near future but creatine simply wasn’t one of them and I think it’s extremely important for controlled experiment perspective to always look at the natural bodybuilding Community as it’s the average natural bodybuilder who should always be using as a benchmark to know what really works for those of us training really hard trying to build muscle without using [Music] steroid facts and unfortunately because the general public doesn’t pay enough attention to truly natural bodybuilders consistently competing with credible natural organizations in competitions that are tested most of the information out there comes from those who profit from the sale of creatine or Fitness influencers who use drugs and as an aside I know for a fact that there are a lot of Fitness influencers out there who talk about creatine that they use and other supplements that they use and I can tell you honestly that they don’t use anything but steroid [Music] like I said in the beginning honesty is a big problem in the fitness industry and so most of what you see out there is more marketing propaganda than looking at large numbers of individuals and seeing what actually works in the real world with natural athletes now that being said here’s the weird part I use creatine every day and you might ask yourself well Kevin why do you use creatine every day if you just said that it doesn’t work to help you build muscle mass well like I said before one of the things that I do is take copious notes of everything that I do and how it affects my body and one of the problems I’ve always had especially after really difficult leg days is muscle cramp muscle cramps at nights after a really hard workout have tortured me for years on end and one of the things I found from using my notes was that when I I was using creatine I didn’t have any cramps and when I stopped using creatine the cramps came back and so I put a 5 G maintenance so into my diet to see whether or not it would make those cramps go away and sure enough they did and I’ve been using it ever since but like I said before I don’t see any physical differences or differ in performances when I’m using it the only difference I feel is that I get less muscle cramps at night and surely enough when I looked at the literature there actually were findings that it does muscle cramps now there’s some other benefits of creatin supported to have in terms of like neurological benefits and such but I can’t say much about that because I always focus on what I have seen personally myself and with those who have trained over the course of years and I always Theory from conjecture but the bottom line is should you or should you not use creatine for building muscle mass first off it’s obvious that you don’t need creatine to build muscle mass and impressive physique naturally my greatest gains human time when creatine wasn’t even commercially available and there are dozens of natural bodybuilders who have worked with all around the world who look fantastic and built remarkable physiques and they had no access to creatine whatsoever so you don’t necessarily need it and what I will say is very very important as a natural athlete that we believe in ourselves that we don’t engage in magical thinking and expect some Powers going to give us these miraculous result because they can’t there is nothing out there that works better than unprocessed Foods consistently clean eating and exceptionally hard work for years and years and years and you have to believe in yourself you don’t have time or energy to focus your beliefs in anything outside of yourself you need to believe in you your hard work at what you’ve done like I always say the problem is that when people start taking supplements they work harder because there’s money on particular supplement that they believe in and because they believe in it they work harder they get results because they’re working harder and they’re more conscientious with the diets and they credit the supplements for their gains instead of the hard work they put in so be very careful about that and for those who’ve been tuning in for a while they’ll know my whole life mission is based on the idea of to who much is given much is expected and because I was able to get so much information about something like creatine over the years and because also growing up with a natural body build without much information about how do you really trade naturally that wasn’t based on marketing it’s my duty to always take what I’ve learned and try and share as much as possible and I hope what I found over these past 30 plus years helps you on your path and helps you make the best decisions going forward so thanks for tuning in know I Believe In You And as always excels here
