Can I take Creatine as a 15 y/o girl?

@raleigh36girl Yes you can. I call it a vitamin would you question taking a vitamin C chewable? Probably not it’s proven safe and effective
3-5 g regular micronized creatine mono hydrate. Everyday, don’t load. You actually want the cheap stuff paying for for expensive hcl or other special creatine is a waste of money and usually have worse results or taste terrible. Regular stuff barely has a taste can drink with anything anytime a day no need pre or post workout.
 
@raleigh36girl COST
  • Gives a big chunk of the population uncomfortable stomach problems.
  • Money (for those who haven't bought it in a while, the price jumped up—still not crazy expensive or anything).
  • Small small risk of having heavy metals in it which may not be excessive on its own, but vitamins and other supplements can also have heavy metals.
BENEFIT
  • It allows men half a decade older than you to lift a few more reps per set... but anecdotally, women tend to have a recovery advantage between sets anyways, and thus can lift more relative weight per session than men. In fact, they tend to have better recovery, as well, so can handle greater frequencies
  • Cognitive benefits of up to 5-10% increase in brain creatine—which is not to say brain function... but at 3-4x the typical dosage
    (citing https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33578876/). Note: I looked into this before and couldn't find anything past short-term studies i.e. nothing to indicate that this increase is sustained--that's not to say this evidence doesn't exist, I just wasn't able to find it.
In my opinion, the costs aren't huge, but the benefits are still not really worth it.

At your age and with your goals (presumably primarily bodybuilding given where you're asking this), I would spend your efforts on squaring away other aspects of your diet and training. The keys right now are consistency and sustainability. Find a way to build flexibility into your plans and keep yourself from getting hurt.

Some general advice spurred by you asking this question to begin with: take it easy. Shoot for a balance between growth and [time investment + injury risk] i.e. focus on sustainability and consistency

A lot of advice you'll see is for bodybuilders who are willing to spend hours extra per week for a 1-10% increase in results. But...
  • For every set you add, you get 50% the gains you did the set that preceded it (not the actual number, but in the right ballpark and makes it easier to conceptualize)
  • For every weekly set you add above a minimum (~1-3 for novices, ~6 for intermediate-advanced), you get lower gains on a per-set basis.
  • For every lb of muscle you gain, it gets harder to add more muscle over and above it. For a male (numbers will be lower with female, but the trend will be similar) with perfectly dialed in training and good genetics, a typical figure people throw around is 20lb muscle gain first year, 10lb the second, 5lb the third, then 1.5-3lb every year after that.
All this together means that if you spend 2-4 hours* a week vs someone else's 10-12, you're only going to be weeks to months behind them, not years. And that's if they don't get injured (which, if they're at 10-12 because they're trying to squeeze out every ounce of muscle growth they can, they probably will). When injured they can't lift or have to work around the injury, which can mean really slow gains forever, or having to drop out of the sport altogether.



[sup]*Note:[/sup] [sup]the[/sup] [sup]2[/sup] [sup]hours[/sup] [sup]would[/sup] [sup]have[/sup] [sup]to[/sup] [sup]be[/sup] [sup]designed[/sup] [sup]around[/sup] [sup]the[/sup] [sup]time[/sup] [sup]constraints.[/sup] [sup]This[/sup] [sup]means[/sup] [sup]trying[/sup] [sup]to[/sup] [sup]lift[/sup] [sup]in[/sup] [sup]a[/sup] [sup]way[/sup] [sup]that[/sup] [sup]minimizes[/sup] [sup]warm-ups[/sup] [sup](e.g.[/sup] [sup]a[/sup] [sup]moderate[/sup] [sup]weight[/sup] [sup]compound[/sup] [sup]followed[/sup] [sup]by[/sup] [sup]machine[/sup] [sup]and[/sup] [sup]dumbbell[/sup] [sup]work[/sup] [sup]in[/sup] [sup]the[/sup] [sup]15-30[/sup] [sup]rep[/sup] [sup]range),[/sup] [sup]antagonist[/sup] [sup]paired[/sup] [sup]super[/sup] [sup]sets,[/sup] [sup]higher[/sup] [sup]frequency[/sup] [sup]training,[/sup] [sup]maybe[/sup] [sup]even[/sup] [sup]doing[/sup] [sup]some[/sup] [sup]dumbbell[/sup] [sup]work[/sup] [sup]at[/sup] [sup]home[/sup] [sup]to[/sup] [sup]save[/sup] [sup]waiting[/sup] [sup]for[/sup] [sup]equipment[/sup]
 
@raleigh36girl When I found out my son (also 15) was taking creatine without asking me, I had him stop, and we agreed we would ask his doc first. Guidance is it’s not for under 18’s. Doctor said to discontinue and just focus on nutrition and protein intake. I took creatine as an 18 year old lifter just as it started coming to market, did load it, it definitely was effective, but if I didn’t drink enough water I would get a random pinching pain in what I assume was my kidney. I think that is an important element to consider. A lot of younger kids aren’t mature enough to keep up with the water consumption or not dehydrating.
Not sure about girls, but for my son I just told him to focus on his diet (protein 1 g per lb of body weight), his form/program, adequate sleep, and the hormones would take care of the rest. There’s really no need for creatine at your age, IMO. I realize there’s a lot of science behind it deeming it safe now (wasn’t as much information in the late 90’s.
 
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