I’m about to start a workout regimine and I want to get some knowledge from those of you sports-medicine types. My roommate use Creatine and Ripped Fuel, and another guy uses Andro.
The results that they have both gotten are impressive, but I’m worried about the drawbacks/side effects. High-pitched voice, bitch-titties and other hyphenated words come to mind.
I’m in excellent health, and I have no known alleriges. I just want some size, damn it!
Thanks y’all.
–==the sax man==–
They’re not steroids. I haven’t used Andro, but Creatine is just increasing a naturally occurring chemical in your body (to hydrate your muscles – not at all like Z-MASS, which increases your testosterone by 600%).
So, no bitch tits and you’ll still have testicles.
HOWEVER, they’re still really new and nobody knows what the side effects are, if there are any. The first and only side-effect known is that you have to keep your kidneys flushed, otherwise the isolate powder will begin to cause damage. Considering how much water you should be drinking without supplements when weightlifting, you’d better drink more than a few litres of water per day.
The only supplement I use right now is Protein isolate. Partially due to finances, but mainly because supplementation becomes a very tangled web. One thing you should beware of is losing all your gains when you stop cycling the supplements. Again, I don’t know what happens when you stop using Andro, but when you stop using Creatine your muscles will dehydrate to a normal level and look noticably smaller than when you were cycling. You will have made considerable gains, if you were to turn it into clinical numbers, but the gains that are left after you’re no longer using Creatine might be no more than what you would’ve made without Creatine.
But, like I said, I don’t use supplements so I am by no means the final word on this. I would talk to several supplement establishments.
http://www.thevitaminguy.com is a place I’ve come in contact with through my fitness travels. They guys who run it are top notch, trustworthy, knowledgable, and fairly straight forward. They should be able to answer your questions. Their website isn’t fully constructed yet, but it has their contact info.
I have used both, and I can tell you that I have not had any long term side effects. When using Andro (and its big brother, Nor-andro), I did notice that I had more of a bad temper than usual, but there were no physical side effects.
I always get good results from using them. True, you do lose some mass when you go off the supplements, but I have always had a net gain that surpasses training alone.
One thing to be careful of when using Creatine, as AC said, is to drink A LOT of water. You will cramp up terribly if you don’t.
When you say that you lose some of the “gains” do you mean that strength, or the size?
–==the sax man==–
I’ve had some experience with Creatine supplimentation and, yes, during the time you are not consuming it, AND no longer lifting, you will lose mass. I did not notice any decrease in strength but that’s probably because the most strenuous activity for me at the time was the actual exercise.
How Creatine works;
The muscles in your body contain a ready supply of adrinotriphosphate (I think that’s it), which you use whenever you contract your muscles (basically whenever you move). A chemical reaction takes place during contraction, breaking the phosphate compound down into adrinobiphosphate. During this reaction, energy is released to the muscle, allowing it to contract and function. When the supply of adrinotriphosphate is depleted, the muscle can no longer move and fatigue occurs (latic acid is also produced from the breakdown, causing that familiar “burn”). The body then uses Creatine (supplied by amino acids produced by the liver, and certain foods) to rebuild the adrinobiphosphate back into adrinotriphosphate.
The process of replenishing the muscles with the tri compound takes considerable time, thus shortening the amount of muscle contractions in a given work-out.
Creatine supplimentation allows the body to rebuild the tri compound more quickly because, with your body saturated with Creatine, it doesn’t have to wait for your liver to manufacture it.
So, due to the now high levels of the tri compound in the cells of your muscles, they appear to be larger and also allow you to do more reps without becoming fatigued.
Basically, Creatine allows you to do more reps…working the muscles for longer periods, which of course results in muscle mass gains.
It is important to cycle off Creatine from time to time so the body doesn’t forget that it still needs to manufacture it for you.
I will say this about creatine. You will gain mass more quickly, but I personally think that your muscles don’t get as cut and defined looking as when you aren’t on creatine.
I think that’s adenosine triphosphate?