Concept2 Forum

Having used creatine monohydrate before and seeing a few gains with weights e.g. 1 or 2 extra reps instantly, I'm struggling to see any benefits with the above. Think I may've just wasted some of my hard earned cash.
(fwiw the CEE is supposedly a non bloating / water retaining version of monohydrate).

CEE (creatine ethyl ester) is nowhere near as effective as creatine monohydrate - a quick google search will tell you as much (there are even studies on it). Apparently it's no better than a placebo.

Stick to good old tried-and-tested creatine monohydrate.

Armando, I went for CEE on the grounds that it didn't give bloating so was *hoping* I wouldn't get weight gain with it. TBF there was conflicting advice with CEE but I took a punt and obviously didn't pay off!

Gammmmo wrote:Armando, I went for CEE on the grounds that it didn't give bloating so was *hoping* I wouldn't get weight gain with it. TBF there was conflicting advice with CEE but I took a punt and obviously didn't pay off!

You need that weightgain, the creatinefosfat holds water. In you don,t hold water, you don,t have the creatine in your muscle either.

FWIW I bought this:

http://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutriti ... 30204.html

and most of the reviews that weren't good were referring to the bad taste (it does indeed taste vile) rather than ineffectiveness. Tempted to get some mono now.

Try USN Crea X4 capsules it has creatine pyruvate in which a few companies are using instead of CEE as CEE has a poor uptake and results are pretty poor

I use creatine monohydrate from Parrillo Performance: https://www.parrilloperformance.com/pro ... te-powder/

A recent article on this supplement: https://www.parrilloperformance.com/creatine-power/

heroesfitness wrote:Try USN Crea X4 capsules it has creatine pyruvate in which a few companies are using instead of CEE as CEE has a poor uptake and results are pretty poor

Nothing at all to do with what you said here! I just noticed in your sig you enjoy Golf and Snooker!!

Great games, that i also have had a very big long time interest in

UPDATE: did indeed switch to creatine mono and did notice a difference in the weight room, adding a few reps here and there immediately. The more I read/hear about creatine the better it seems - has all sorts of benefits including for the brain too!

I actually tried creatine back in ~1990 when it was available in large tablets and the trade name was "ergomax" IIRC and from I think a company that produced one of the very first glucose polymer powder drinks called Maxim. It felt as though I was taking something dodgy back then and the ironic thing was I wasn't probably taking enough of it to get the benefits either!

Totally agree re CEE...awful taste and useless.

I was reading about Beta Alanine recently and the fact that you need to take it for 4 weeks until it makes a difference. It was an official academic paper and not just someone who had decided that they were an expert, so it might be worth trying over a longer time frame.

The problem with that is that I guess it will be hard to differentiate between Beta Alanine benefits and standard incremental improvements over a 4 week period.

Dangerscouse wrote:Totally agree re CEE...awful taste and useless.

I was reading about Beta Alanine recently and the fact that you need to take it for 4 weeks until it makes a difference. It was an official academic paper and not just someone who had decided that they were an expert, so it might be worth trying over a longer time frame.

The problem with that is that I guess it will be hard to differentiate between Beta Alanine benefits and standard incremental improvements over a 4 week period.

Two supplements that I've been reading a lot about (one I take, another I'm getting for my wife and might consider for myself) are Astaxanthin. Great supplement well known among triathletes. It's just being researched more recently related to oxidative stress and pain, especially with Omega 3s. Also, seems Astaxanthin is also great for liver health.

The other is L-Carnosine, which is more or less a Beta Alanine stack. Reading some really amazing studies on that too. Supposed to be a really superb anti-aging molecule. Also helps with oxidative stress, mitochondrial function and performance.