Strength & Power: Why Signature Creatine Belongs in Your Stack

Boost your power, muscle growth, recovery, and more—discover the many benefits of our Signature Creatine.

BBCOM Editors
January 3, 2025

What is Creatine?

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound essential to the functioning of your muscles, found in food such as red meat, poultry, and fish. Once ingested, creatine is stored in muscle tissue as phosphocreatine—a compound that’s able to create more energy in the body.

Why Creatine Supplementation?

Creatine could easily be the most popular, well-studied, and effective supplement for increasing strength, muscle mass, and overall athletic performance. Creatine supplementation promotes a faster regeneration of your body’s energy for muscle contractions by replenishing your body’s natural source of energy.[1-2]

In a normal omnivore diet, a person will consume one gram of creatine per day resulting in a muscle saturation of 60-80%. With creatine supplementation, a person can increase saturation by 20-40%.

How Much Should I Take?

A typical dosing protocol is a two-step process of a loading phase and a maintenance phase. The loading phase requires you to consume a total of 20 grams per day for about a week in order to fully saturate your muscles. The maintenance phase requires you to consume a daily dose of five grams. Recent research suggests that higher creatine supplementation in amounts of 0.1 g/kg of body weight combined with resistance training can further improve training adaptations at a cellular and subcellular level.

Why Take Bodybuilding.com’s Signature Creatine?

Creatine is the supplement that put Bodybuilding.com on the map. Not only is our Signature Creatine Monohydrate a top quality supplement, it’s also available at a competitive price point. Want to make getting your daily creatine dose even easier? Our creatine comes in a micronized powder with a 200-mesh rating so it dissolves easily into any of your favorite liquids.

Benefits of Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine monohydrate is the most researched and widely used form of creatine, known for its stability, effectiveness, and absorption. It’s truly a multi-benefit powerhouse, shown to improve power output, muscle growth, muscle recovery, muscle fullness, as well as improve brain health, bone health, blood sugar levels, and combat sarcopenia.

Let’s dive in deeper to the many benefits.

Increased Power Output

Scientific studies have shown that creatine allows for higher power output during resistance training and high-intensity interval workouts. For example, a study demonstrated that short-term creatine supplementation in athletes led to significant improvements in lower body and upper body max lifts, and greater total repetitions performed to fatigue, as well as enhanced repeated sprint performance.[3]

Muscle Growth

A meta-analysis of all creatine studies have consistently demonstrated a positive result from creatine supplementation and muscle growth[4]. These results are even more pronounced when combined with greater protein intake, heavy lifting, and calorie surplus.

 Improved Recovery

Creatine may speed recovery time between bouts of intense exercise by mitigating muscle damage and promoting the faster recovery of lost force-production. Studies have shown creatine replenishes ATP energy, lower inflammation, decreases delay onset muscle soreness (DOMS), increases glycogen storage, and brings more water to the cells to eliminate waste products.[5]

Cell Volume and Hydration

Creatine can make your muscles look fuller by increasing intracellular water in the muscle cells, stimulating protein synthesis, and replenishing glycogen.[6]

Brain Health

Creatine has been shown to benefit brain function, particularly in aging populations or those with neurodegenerative diseases. It also has the potential to improve memory and performance in stressful situations or during mental fatigue. The brain, like muscles, relies on ATP for energy. Creatine can enhance brain function by increasing energy availability, particularly during high-demand cognitive tasks.

Improved Bone Health

Lifting weights and increasing muscle mass can help with strengthening bone density, andrecent research that suggests that creatine may help improve bone health in older individuals.

Helps Manage Blood Sugar

Some studies have shown that creatine supplementation may help enhance glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, making it beneficial for metabolic health.

Reduces Muscle Wasting in Illness

Creatine has been found to help preserve muscle mass in individuals with muscle-wasting conditions such as sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss).

Takeaways

Our Signature Creatine is the gold standard for athletes seeking to improve strength, power, and recovery. Beyond its performance-enhancing benefits, this powerful supplement can help you improve overall muscle growth, hydration, and recovery, as well as support broader health benefits—from brain health to muscle preservation. With its affordable price point and easily dissolving formula, Bodybuilding.com’s Signature Creatine is one of the most versatile, must-have supplements available.