Why Take Creatine as a Non-Responder?

You’ve been training for a few months, you’ve already bought your first tub of protein powder and multivitamins, but your friend who has been bringing you to the gym suggests you take creatine. He tells you how it increases the amount of water inside of your muscles and increases ATP to help you push out a few extra reps leading to more growth over time. Sounds like a win-win right?

You end up doing your own research and find out that creatine is the most studied supplement ever and its effects are almost guaranteed when taken correctly and consistently. So what is the next logical step? You go out and buy a pound of creatine monohydrate!

Using Creatine

During the first week you do the loading phase and it’s all going well, you’re gaining weight like you’re supposed to (from water retention) and your friend tells you it will take a few weeks to start to feel the effects when it comes to lifting more. But after about a month you haven’t seen any noticeable gains in the gym while your friend upped his bench press 20 pounds in his first month of taking creatine. What is going on? What has your friend been doing that you haven’t?

Surprisingly, your friend has done nothing different besides having different genetics. Unfortunately you are what is known as a non-responder: someone who could take the correct dose of creatine for years but see no increase in athletic performance. We still aren’t completely sure why this happens, but about 25% of everyone who will try creatine won’t notice results and will most likely never try it again like I once did as a non-responder.

If that was once you or if you have yet to try creatine and experience this in the future, I have good news for you! There are still many reasons why everybody who cares about their health should take creatine daily, even athletic non-responders. Read on to learn why I started taking creatine again and why you should too!

Benefits Of Creatine

The athletic benefits of creatine have been studied countless times over the past half century over and over again. It wasn’t until recently that studies have focused on other potential benefits associated with creatine supplementation, specifically its ability to affect the brain in certain ways. Known as nootropics, or a class of herbs and supplements that affect cognitive function and memory, creatine has been found to fit into this category.

When creatine is ingested it gets absorbed into the bloodstream and can cross the blood brain barrier (something only few compounds can do) and benefit the brain. When in the brain creatine binds with phosphate, this is the form of creatine that can increase the energy supply (A.K.A. increased ATP production) in the brain causing a few things to happen.

Increased energy from creatine in the brain functions the same as increased glucose and oxygen in the brain, allowing neurons and overall brain function to be more efficient. Creatine can actually increase memory and focus. This was proven when participants in a study showed a better short term memory and mental performance when supplementing with creatine compared to a placebo group.