does creatine even help with HST?

[noobie]

I'm not sure if this is a totally noob question or not, but i've read all over the place on bodybuilding.com and the effects that are related with energy usage. The articles stress being able to , lift more, go one more rep, one more set, one higher weight. Do we need this for HST? They say all this crap about recovery and overloading ur muscles and how Crea will aid things through this. Are we "over"loading our muscles per se in the way that they state it, that creatine will be beneficial? or do we have enough endogeneous creatine since we can do all the reps, do all the sets in our HST workouts?

main question: will we really benefit that much from creatine if we are on HST?
opinions replies thanks

 

[Old and Grey]

HSTers don't really overload muscles, except during negatives. We merely progressively load muscles in a sane and systematic manner. And yes, I find that creatine helps quite a bit. It seems to add 5 to 10% to my maxes. You don't, however, need to take the obscene amounts some people recommend. A constant load of 3.5 to 5 grams per day is fine for the average lifter. It's the only legal supplement, other than protein, that I can say with surety actually works.

 

[noobie]

but how else will it aid HST users? im guessing the size will be larger due to volumization that comes a long with extra creatine. and do u recommend, instead of just raising maxes by 5-10lbs each time, to increase it by 5-10% for future cycles? what really can HSTers gain from using crea? we won't be able to "see" the actual gains of increasing our maxes until each whole cycle is over. Will we still be able to see the gains in mass from crea even though we don't over load our muscles like max-OTers or HITers? thanks for the replies

 

[savagebeast]

http://www.1fast400.com/?ingredients_id=1

That page contains a lot of easy to understand information about creatine, and it seems pretty well referenced. (I can't say whether or not everything it claims is correct, though. I'll leave that to someone more knowledgeable than myself.) A couple of things that stood out to me, aside from increased muscle energy, is that it helps to increase protein synthesis and prevent catabolism. Both of those things apply no matter what lifting program one may be using.

 

[s7e]

Creatine is so cheap; you should basically take it with no questions asked. ;D

 

[noobie]

Savage, i read the stuff at that url. Basically its the same stuff around bodybuilding.com and alot of other places. But, since creatine, or rejuvenation of ATP occurs mostly when you train to failure, or something like such that apply with workout methods such as Max ot, HIIT. And as you take creatine, it helps rejuvenate ATP during workouts, after, and during "recovery." But, since we arent over loading like the rest of these methods, doesn't that mean we have enough creatine? enough atp and all that other stuff, so the creatine that we tak exo would be of no use? I'm not sure, but i think that's how creatine works. But yea. I will be getting creatine to just try it out. Also, does the volumization occur even if you don't "overload" the muscle? And if so, is it even noticeable? thanks guys

 

[imported_dkm1987]

ATP can be used by muscle cells very quickly, but there is only an extremely limited supply -- usually only enough for a few seconds of high intensity work. When the ATP is gone, work stops. Fortunately, the body has several ways to convert ADP back to ATP. The fastest method is to move the phosphate group off of phosphocreatine and onto ADP. This yields ATP -- which is immediately available for muscular work -- and creatine. There is enough phosphocreatine to keep ATP levels up for several more seconds. So at this point we've moved from 2 - 3 seconds of all-out work (ATP) to almost 10 seconds (ATP + creatine). The body can recharge creatine back to phosphocreatine, but this takes time (approximately 30 - 60 seconds).

So when you say

Quote[/b] ]But, since we arent over loading like the rest of these methods, doesn't that mean we have enough creatine?

you need to understand that we are using our ATP stores whether you are going to failure or not. Using that idea wouldn't it better to be able to stay away from metabolic failure longer and increase the loading time? Creatine helps us with this.

A variety of protocols have been used to study the effect of creatine supplementation of brief, intermittant, high intensity exercise. Some of the exercise protocols which have shown improvements in performance are listed below, with indexed references. The most common method of supplementation used a 5 or 6 day loading period, consisting of approximately 20 grams of creatine per day.

Five sets of 30 maximum voluntary knee extensions, with 60 seconds rest between sets. (1)
Ten x 6 second bouts with 30 seconds rest. High intensity work on a bicycle ergometer. Placebo controlled, double-blind study design.(2)
Bench press; 5 sets to failure (predetermined 10 rep maximum), with 2 minute rest periods. Jump squats; 5 sets of ten, with 2 minute rest periods, using 30% of each subjects predetermined 1 rep. maximum. Placebo controlled, double-blind study design. (3)
Maximum continuous jumping exercise; 45 seconds. All-out treadmill running (approx. 60 seconds), at 20 km/hr, 5 degree incline. Placebo controlled, double-blind study design. (4)
Cycling to exhaustion at 150% peak VO2 at several different protocols; non-stop (a), 60 seconds work / 120 seconds rest (b), 20 seconds work / 40 seconds rest ©, and 10 seconds work / 20 seconds rest (d). Group D showed the greatest improvement with creatine supplementation. Placebo controlled, double-blind study design. (5)

(1) Influence of oral creatine supplementation on muscle torque during repeated bouts of maximum voluntary exercise in man. Greenhaff PL, et al. Clin. Sci. 1993: 84: 565-71.

(2) Creatine supplementation and dynamic high-intensity intermittent exercise. Balsom PD, et al. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 1993: 3: 143-9.

(3) Creatine supplementation enhances muscular performance during high-intensity resistance exercise. Volek JS, et al. J Am. Diet. Assoc. 1997; 97; 765-770.

(4) Effect of oral creatine supplementation on jumping and running performance. Bosco C, et. al. Int. J. Sports Med. 1997; 18; 369-372.

(5) Creatine supplementation enhances intermittent work performance. Prevost MC, et al. Res. Quarterly Exerc. Sport. 1997; 68(3); 233-240.

 

[noobie]

ahhh, alright i understand. so i guess that means we use up a pretty decent amount of our ATP even before we reach failure so even without the overload it is beneficial. mmm gotcha. thanks again dkm.