Build Muscle - The Creatine Basics   Supplementing with Creatine Monohydrate has become very popular within the weight lifting and fitness community. The results both men and women are getting with creatine speak for themselves.   Here are some of the major benefits people get from supplementing with Creatine:   Creatine may:    increase your muscle energy.    increase your muscle strength.    increase your muscle endurance.    increase your muscle torque.    increase your muscle cell volume.    enhance your recovery.   The high-quality creatine monohydrate saturation formulas have quickly become “must-have” supplements for any serious bodybuilder.  These formulas have really taken the guess-work out of making solid, consistent, and CONTINUAL gains with creatine.   By combining pure creatine monohydrate, the high glycemic, insulin-releasing carbohydrate dextrose, and sodium from sodium phosphate (a critical nutrient for proper creatine transport), along with a few other enhancers, these products have made creatine supplementation easy, exact, and inexpensive. Those grape juice bills can really mount up.   EAS Creatine Phosphagen HP was one of the first creatine monohydrate drinks, and it’s still a good supplement.     Creatine HSC from AST Research mixes up easy and tastes great. A lot of people who say they never really made big gains on creatine until they started using this product. And now AST Sports Science uses only Micronized Creatine in all their Creatine HSC products. It’s definitely top notch.     MuscleTech’s Cell-Tech Creatine is Musclemag.com's top selling Creatine. It is an extremely potent creatine formula, with twice the usual amount of creatine per serving (a full 10 grams). Cell-Tech has a very loyal following.     Champion Nutrition Creatine Extreme contains glutamine and Bioprene for better Creatine absorption.     Creatine Monohydrate   Creatine Monohydrate   Advanced Creatine Supplementation Questions and Answers   A quick look at some of the latest developing questions surrounding one of the most popular bodybuilding and fitness supplements ever:   Q. Is micronized creatine just hype or is it really better?   A. Micronized creatine is very interesting. Basically, it’s produced through a process that finely grinds or micronizes the creatine particles themselves into particles that are 10, 15, even 20 times smaller than regular creatine particles. There’s no doubt that micronized creatine dissolves better in liquid—this just makes sense. It’s also theorized that the smaller particle size leads to easier and faster digestion and uptake into the blood. Individuals who report stomach upset with regular creatine intake almost always find the problem alleviated by switching to the micronized version. Many of the top creatine monohydrate products on the market—including AST’s Creatine HSC—have already switched to using micronized particles. This trend is likely to continue and accelerate in the near future.   Q. Is there a difference between types of creatines that are currently available?   A. As some people are aware, you can now find creatine on the market in three forms: phosphate, citrate, and monohydrate. My feeling is that the phosphate variety is not easily absorbed by the body and for this reason will not yield effective and substantial results. The citrate variety seemed to be catching on for a time, but again the research is sketchy here. In fact, nearly all the positive clinical studies that have been done on creatine have utilized the monohydrate form, and this is the only form that I currently recommend.   Q. Should you use creatine monohydrate and an ECA Stack together?   A. Depending on your training and physique goals, doing so may be counterproductive. You see, one of the primary ways creatine works is by loading the muscles with water this is why consuming large amounts of water is such a critical part of effective creatine supplementation. On the other hand, the caffeine included in the typical ECA Stack has a diuretic effect—it draws water out of the muscles and the body. So if you take your creatine simultaneous with your ECA Stack, or with a cup of coffee for that matter, you’ll tend to cancel out the cell-volumizing effects of the creatine.   Q. Is all creatine monohydrate alike, or are the name brands really better?   A. There’s a ton of cheap, generic creatine monohydrate on the market (especially on the web), but I’m convinced that most of it is of significantly lower quality than the reputable brand name versions. Supplement companies and distributors in the U.S. currently get their raw creatine from two primary sources: China and Germany. The creatine that comes in from China is almost always less expensive, but it’s also much more likely to be impure. Typically, it’ll be cut with the complex carb maltodextrin. This is the dirt cheap “creatine” that many wholesalers offer. No wonder some people don’t see any results. Reputable creatine suppliers prefer the German version, which is a bit more expensive but tests out at a significantly higher level of quality. With creatine you really do get what you pay for.     Article Written by: Bob Myhal     ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° °     ° ° ° ° ° °