Creatine's Affect on Muscles

Summary:

In the video, it states, by taking the dietary supplement, Creatine, people will become stronger and gain a lot of lean muscle.  It sounds too good to be true but it is backed up with scientific proof.  First off, Creatine is produced naturally by the body, specifically in the liver.  However, not enough is produced so that there are noticeable affects.  Affects become more noticeable when taking supplemental Creatine because more of it is present in your body.  Creatine works by increasing the rate at which ADP and Phosphates combine to form ATP.  With this efficient way of energy production, people are able to go longer and harder in their workouts due to the increased energy input.  While lifting heavy weights, the muscles in the body contract.  We learned that muscle fibers are comprised of sarcomeres, and each sarcomere contains contractile proteins called Actin and Myosin.  Once the nervous system sends an impulse for the muscle fiber to contract, ATP releases a phosphate which creates energy, that energy is then used by the muscle fibers to contract.  Once ATP releases a phosphate, it turns into ADP.  Supplemental Creatine contains lots of phosphates and can quickly attach to ADP and replenish ATP.  For example, if I were to bench press very heavy weights without supplemental Creatine, my muscles would exhaust all the available ATP in a few repetitions and I would not be able to do anymore.  However, if I were taking supplemental Creatine, my body would have a reserve of phosphates which would then be used to convert the ADP into more ATP.  Therefore, it would give me an increase in short term energy and allow me to lift the weight more times than I could before.  Because I am able to do more repetitions, I am building more muscle. 

Relevance to Class:

Last month, we learned all about the muscular and nervous system and how they contribute to the movement of our bodies appendages.  We learned that the contractions by the Myosin and Actin pull the sarcomeres in the muscle fibers closer together.  And with each contraction, the muscles need to break apart a phosphate from an ATP molecule to get energy.  By lifting weights, the quick and powerful movements cause the muscles to use up a lot of the ATP and once there is none left, the muscles give out because there is no more energy to cause the Actin and Myosin to contract and you're unable to continue lifting without a little break.  I learned that the supplemental Creatine carries a lot of phosphates which gives your body an additional energy source that the muscles can extract from.

Source: 

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xb_sbuslcw
Date Published:  Jul 27, 2012
Author: Peter Roberts