Why I Recommend Creatine for Active Women

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As we’re seeing more and more research focused specifically on women (yay!) creatine has finally been given its due as a great support for strength, power, performance, mood, blood sugar regulation and brain health  – with real benefits for women specifically.

“Creatine supplementation among pre-menopausal females appears to be effective for improving strength and exercise performance. Post-menopausal females may also experience benefits in skeletal muscle size and function when consuming high doses of creatine (0.3 g·kg⁻¹·d⁻¹); and favorable effects on bone when combined with resistance training.” (1)

I’ve personally been using it daily this year (age 46) to see how I felt, and the research I’ve been doing combined with positive personal experience makes me want to share this with you so you can consider how to take advantage of the benefits.

What is creatine?

First and foremost, creatine is a naturally occurring compound that’s stored in your muscle cells. Your body makes about 1 gram of creatine daily by combining three amino acids (glycine, arginine and methionine) in your kidneys, liver and pancreas (2).

You can also eat foods that contain creatine, like meat, fish and some dairy, and/or take it in a supplemental form.

About 95% of your creatine is stashed in your muscle cells in a form called “phosphocreatine,” and when you’re doing a high intensity exercise like heavy lifting or explosive cardio (sprinting, jumping, plyometrics, speed intervals) it separates to help generate an energy-producing ATP molecule – giving you more power.

Strength and Power

More power means you can go harder just a little longer in your workouts.

With good creatine stores in your muscle tissue, you have more energy from more ATP and the quality of your training improves – which adds up to better results for you like being able to strengthen your muscle tissue more effectively.

Both short and long-term studies of creatine use in active women have shown significant improvements in strength and power, as well as lean mass development.

There’s less fatigue to the muscles when there is sufficient creatine present as well – meaning you recover more quickly.

Benefits for women post-menopause

That’s great news for women post menopause too. With the decline in estrogen production as we approach and enter menopause, there is a direct correlation with bone and muscle mass loss.

But with the regular practice of strategically timed resistance training and explosive cardio (discussed here) and upping your protein intake, you can bypass the muscle loss and actually gain strength and lose body fat during this life stage.

Creatine supplementation can give you an edge in this process with its support for ATP by helping to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress.

When combined with resistance training, creatine supplementation shows real promise in supporting lean mass production for post menopausal women (1).

Brain Health and mood

The other 5% of your creatine stores are concentrated in the central nervous system, and have important roles to play in mood and neural function.

There is research that suggests that the neurotransmitters (messengers that carry information between your brain cells and impact mood) are very reliant on the phosphocreatine system functioning as it should (3), and evidence that creatine supplementation can support depression symptoms in women (4,5,6).

“Pre-clinical and clinical evidence indicates positive effects from creatine supplementation on mood and cognition, possibly by restoring brain energy levels and homeostasis. Creatine supplementation may be even more effective for females by supporting a pro-energetic environment in the brain.” (1)

Creatine supplementation may be especially beneficial for women in general, partly because it’s been reported that women have 70-80% less stores of creatine than men do and are reported to consume lower amounts of dietary creatine compared to men.

With women showing higher instances of depression than men and the correlation between creatine stores and their impact on neural function and mood, it leads me to wonder if women were prioritizing the amino acids from protein in their dietary intake (or in supplemental form) more consistently, could we impact those numbers?

Times in life when we make less natural creatine

Due to the cyclical nature of our hormones during our reproductive years, we may synthesize (make) less creatine during our periods, during pregnancy, and post-partum.

We also make less creatine post-menopause. This is one of the reasons supplementation may really benefit us by bolstering those levels we have access to at key life stages.

During pregnancy, there’s an increased demand for creatine from the placenta (7). There is research being done on the impact creatine plays in fertilization, the use and role of creatine during development, and I expect we’ll see follow up research and studies being done in the coming years about the safety of creatine use during pregnancy (I don’t have the answer on that yet).

Recommendations for supplementation

Whether you are getting it from dietary sources or not, creatine supplementation may be something to consider – especially if you’re active (8).

Studies have not shown adverse response for women using supplemental creatine (9), but always listen to your body when you’re adding something new. Because we’re continuously using our creatine stores, it’s easier to become depleted without any dietary input.

Personally, I have tried a couple different kinds or creatine currently on the market, and had better results with one over the other.

I tried creatine HCL because there was a lot of compelling marketing around it, but it was incredibly salty and I got really dehydrated while I was testing it. There is less research on this form of creatine than there is on the better-known creatine monohydrate.

After more use, I found that creatine monohydrate had the best impact on my body when I included it daily.

It has the greater quantity of supportive research (10,11), and more recently, research that is women-specific. I had no symptoms and only noticed that my body was responding to my training efficiently. I use the creatine monohydrate made by Thorne.

I put it in with my Rock and Restore aminos during a workout, and mix it into water on non-training days (so yes, you can take it daily).

The general recommendation is a serving (5g) per day. When you first start using it, you have the option to “build up” a reserve in your muscle tissue the first week by using 20g per day, either spread out into 4 servings, or divided into 2 servings of 10g. Then you can just go to 5g per day.

I did this, and didn’t notice anything adverse from using the higher amounts. I continue to take the 5 gram serving daily now, as I’m currently in perimenopause and training regularly with an aim to preserve muscle. You could just stick to the daily 5 gram serving and skip the build up if you prefer.

Stay hydrated

It is important to stay hydrated if you’re using creatine (and if you’re training regularly in general!), as creatine drives some additional water into your muscle cells. There was a case of a man using creatine at higher than recommended doses for an extended period of time who then began restricting water for weight loss purposes. As a result, he developed retinal nerve pressure (12).

While this is an extreme case, I was interested to see if creatine had any studies about dehydration (as I mentioned I experienced that with the HCL type). This study (13) was done on men only, and they were not able to find any dehydration with creatine supplement use. I haven’t experienced any dehydration since using only creatine monohydrate, and the general consensus is that it does not cause it. With that being said, stay hydrated!

With all supplements, if you have a medical condition or are on medication be sure to consult with your doctor before starting any new supplements.

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