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1.What is Ferrous Gluconate?

"Creatine is a combination of three different amino acids: glycine, arginine, and methionine. That's it—nothing more than a combination of amino acids," writes world-class powerlifter Layne Norton, Ph.D., in the article "Creatine: What It Is and How It Works." And yet, that simple compound is involved in a vast number of processes in the body. It's a fundamental component in how your body creates its primary form of energy in muscle cells, the compound adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. When muscles contract explosively, or for brief, intense work lasting no longer than 8-12 seconds, creatine (bonded with phosphoric acid as creatine phosphate) is how the muscle creates the energy necessary to do it.

2.What Does Creatine Monohydrate Do?

As Layne Norton, Ph.D., explains in the article "Creatine: What It Is and How It Works," "Creatine itself is a fuel source." More specifically, the phosphate-bonded form of creatine is "your body's first choice of energy when performing anaerobic activity, such as lifting weights." When your body is trying to create the compound that powers quick muscle contractions, ATP, it does so by "borrowing" a phosphate molecule from phosphocreatine and combining it with another compound, ADP. Only after a muscle has largely used up its store of phosphocreatine does it start to produce ATP from other sources, like glucose or fats."Supplementation with creatine serves to increase creatine stores and phosphocreatine availability in the body, resulting in faster ATP formation," writes exercise physiologist Ciaran Fairman, Ph.D., in the article "6 Side Effects of Creatine Debunked." "Bottom line: The more phosphocreatine you have, the more work you can accomplish before fatigue sets it." A secondary function of creatine is to draw water into muscle cells, making them more hydrated. "When muscle cells are hydrated a few things happen, the most notable being an increase in protein synthesis," explains Norton. As many lifters will attest, this action of drawing water into the cell can also make their muscles look bigger or fuller.

3.What Are the Benefits of Taking Creatine Monohydrate?

Creatine's reputation among athletes is largely built around gains in strength and muscle. And according to strength coach and researcher Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., CSCS, that reputation is well-earned. "If you were to ask me for a single supplement recommendation when muscle growth is the goal, I'd say hands-down, no-brainer: creatine," Schoenfeld explains in the article "Ask the Muscle Doc: How Does Creatine Help Muscle Gains?" "Gains of several pounds of muscle are routinely reported when lifters supplement with creatine, over and above just performing resistance training alone. There are hundreds of studies showing improvements in strength, power, muscle size, fatigue resistance, and overall body composition when people who regularly strength train take creatine. No, it won't simply make you stronger by magic, but it may be able to help you do a few more reps with a heavier weight. And that, over time, can definitely make you stronger. But if you think the benefits end once you step out of the weight room, think again. "Contrary to what most people think, you don't have to be a strength or power athlete to reap the benefits of this remarkable supplement," explains researcher Krissy Kendall, Ph.D. Specifically, Kendall says, creatine has been shown to help endurance athletes store more glycogen to use during training or competition. It has also been shown to reduce inflammation and cell damage following lengthy, intense exercise. In layman's terms, that means less pain after training, and less time before you feel up to training again. The athletic benefits of this supplement may be even more pronounced in vegetarians. For example, one study that compared creatine use by vegetarians and nonvegetarians found that the vegetarians experienced greater increases in lean tissue and the ability to perform high-volume leg workouts than a nonvegetarian group. This is likely because the vegetarians had lower amounts of stored muscle creatine prior to the experiment.

4.How Does Creatine Monohydrate Work?

Creatine is one of the most-studied sports supplements, with over 2,000 studies to date. And that research is largely consistent in showing that creatine does provide some benefit to most people who take it. And yet it isn't exactly clear about how, exactly, creatine monohydrate achieves these benefits, as Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., CSCS, explains in the article "Ask the Muscle Doc: How Does Creatine Help Muscle Gains?" One explanation is that since creatine boosts strength gains, it allows lifters to move more overall weight and generate more of what is called "mechanical tension." Mechanical tension is known to be one of the primary creators of muscle growth. However, it's also possible that because creatine draws water into muscle cells, it contributes to another one of the creators of muscle growth, cellular swelling. The third of the major mechanisms of muscle growth is muscular damage. "It's entirely possible that creatine can positively impact two, or even all three, of those mechanisms," Schoenfeld writes.