Can You Mix Creatine With Pre-Workout? Science Explained

In case you’re severe about gaining muscle and power, you in all probability take creatine and pre-workout.

Nonetheless, you could have heard that taking these two dietary supplements collectively is a foul thought since they counteract one another’s performance-enhancing advantages. 

Is that this true? Are you able to combine pre-workout with creatine? Or is it counterproductive?

The quick and reasonably unsatisfying reply is it relies upon—elements such because the substances in your pre-workout and whether or not you’re loading creatine play a component.

On this article, you’ll be taught what science says about mixing creatine with pre-workout. You’ll additionally uncover the distinction between these dietary supplements, the very best time to take creatine, and extra. 

Creatine vs. Pre-Exercise: What’s the Distinction?

Creatine and pre-workout are two dietary dietary supplements used to spice up athletic efficiency. Due to this similarity, many individuals suppose they’re the identical.

In actuality, nevertheless, creatine and pre-workout are fairly totally different. 

Creatine

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound composed of the amino acids L-arginine, glycine, and methionine.  

Your kidneys and liver produce creatine, and you may also take in it from meals like red meat, fish, and eggs. Your physique shops this creatine in your muscle tissue, the place it helps generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the first supply of mobile energy. 

Creatine supplements, corresponding to creatine powder and creatine gummies, are in style amongst athletes and gymgoers as a result of they’ve quite a few muscle-building and performance-enhancing advantages. 

Particularly, they boost power and energy, accelerate muscle development, improve endurance, improve recovery, and extra. 

Pre-Exercise

Pre-workout often accommodates a mixture of substances, corresponding to caffeine, theanine, citrulline malate, and beta-alanine.

Can You Combine Creatine With Pre-Exercise?

In case your pre-workout is caffeine-free, there’s probably no draw back to combining it with creatine. 

But when your pre-workout accommodates caffeine, issues get extra sophisticated.

On the floor, combining creatine and pre-workout containing caffeine looks like a no brainer: creatine boosts power, energy, and endurance, whereas caffeine enhances focus and vitality. 

And since they work in numerous methods—creatine will increase ATP manufacturing, whereas caffeine stimulates the central nervous system—you’d anticipate them to enhance one another completely.

However analysis reveals that’s not all the time the case.

Four high–quality studies have seemed on the results of blending creatine with caffeine throughout a creatine “loading section” (a interval whenever you take a big every day dose of creatine to assist it accumulate in your muscle sooner).

Right here’s a abstract of their outcomes:

Surprisingly, whereas three research confirmed that creatine alone boosted efficiency, none reported constructive results when individuals mixed creatine with caffeine.

Scientists are nonetheless not sure why that is, however there are two main theories:

1. Creatine helps muscle tissue chill out sooner, which lets you generate excessive quantities of drive rapidly and repeatedly. Conversely, caffeine slows this course of, which can negate creatine’s advantages.
2. Taking massive doses of each dietary supplements could cause gastrointestinal points that make it exhausting to carry out at your finest.

Whereas these outcomes are fascinating, we are able to’t essentially apply them to individuals taking smaller doses of caffeine and creatine, particularly since research also reveals that utilizing caffeine instantly after a creatine loading section has a constructive impression on athletic efficiency.

Furthermore, studies have shown that pre-workout dietary supplements containing caffeine and creatine can enhance train efficiency and muscle development.

Nonetheless, the dietary supplements in these research additionally included different performance-boosting and muscle-building substances, corresponding to beta-alanine and whey protein, making it unclear what produced the advantages—the creatine, caffeine, or the mixture of all of the substances.

A 2022 study revealed within the Journal of Dietary Dietary supplements provides one other twist.

It discovered that weightlifters taking creatine alone gained quad muscle, whereas these combining it with caffeine didn’t. Nonetheless, the distinction in muscle development was small, and the creatine-only group didn’t outperform the placebo in another measure, together with general muscle acquire, power, or endurance.

Given these outcomes, it’s exhausting to argue that caffeine definitively interferes with creatine’s advantages. If caffeine actually diminished creatine’s effectiveness, the creatine group ought to have outperformed the placebo throughout all metrics—however that wasn’t the case.

Conclusion

Ought to You Take Creatine Earlier than or After Your Exercise?

There’s no benefit to taking creatine proper earlier than you prepare. Not like caffeine, creatine doesn’t offer you an instantaneous vitality enhance or sharpen your focus. As an alternative, it really works by increase in your muscle tissue over time.

Subsequently, a prudent strategy is to take pre-workout and creatine individually. For instance, take your pre-workout 30-to-60 minutes earlier than coaching, then take your creatine along with your post-workout meal or protein shake.

This manner, you maximize the advantages of each dietary supplements with none potential interference.

Or, if that doesn’t suit your schedule, take creatine at any time that works for you—simply keep away from combining it with hefty doses of caffeine.

FAQ #1: Is creatine the identical as pre-workout?

Pre-workout dietary supplements, alternatively, are blends of a number of substances like caffeine, beta-alanine, and l-citrulline, designed to reinforce focus, vitality, endurance, and general exercise efficiency.

Sure, you may take further creatine, however it may not be essential. 

Most pre-workout powders comprise a small quantity of creatine—often not sufficient to achieve the optimum every day dose of 3-to-5 grams. In case your pre-workout has lower than this quantity, including further creatine may also help make sure you get all the advantages. 

Likewise, should you’re loading creatine or wish to take the next dose, further creatine could also be essential to hit your goal.  

FAQ #3: Does creatine offer you vitality like pre-workout?