Caffeine and creatine

[mjoe]

Carb Back-Loading makes a strong case for both caffeine and creatine supplementation, but how well do they work together?What are people's views on supplementation with both?This article provides some food for thought:http://www.ergo-log.com/creatinecaffeine.htmlBackground/basis for posing questionIn the past I have noticed the benefits of creatine, but since whacking massive amounts of coffee I can't see the same benefits in muscle size/fullness and particularly strength increases. (I've always drank coffee, just not to the extent I am currently).PersonallyI am considering hitting decaf for a while (just to gain the appetite suppressant benefits) whilst loading up on creatine.  Possibly sticking to decaf for a week or too after this, to see if I can notice creatine benefits, and then introducing coffee again but just pre-workout, to see how this affects me.After this I may then reintroduce morning coffee and again monitor strength levels/progress.It may be the case that creatine supplementation would be optimal, in favour of caffiene, when focusing on muscle gain, and caffeine (either alone or with creatine) would be best when trying to maximise fat burning? Or maybe you should just do as Keifer says and have them both all of the time?I'm just interested to see what people's views are on this.Thanks

[CptSmash]

DECAF  😮 no way!Probably not a big issue if you take it for preventing muscle wasting, or if you're consuming several servings of 5g/day.  Esp. post workout.

[mjoe]

There didn't seem to be much interest in this post, however, for those who are interested:I have been without caffeine for 3 weeks now (I had a few decaf coffees in the first few days).  I haven't gained any fat, I feel slightly leaner if anything (despite trying to "bulk"), have gained around 6-7lbs in this time and am progressing well in the gym, making my targets and not missing a lift in this time.VerdictFrom my experience I would say that caffeine definitely reduces, if not nullifies, the benefits of creatine. I will be focusing on creatine and may have the occasional coffee if I feel dead before a major deadlift or squat sesh.I will take a week or 2/3 off creatine at some point, maybe in a further 3 weeks time and will take advantage of the benefits of caffeine in this time period, before switching back to creatine.gremlin1267, yeah I couldn't see life without caffeine before I gave it a go but its not that hard a switch over really. And RE taking creatine to prevent muscle wasting, if caffeine limits creatine induced muscle strength/size (as I have found) it stands to reason that it would also inhibit any other benefits, such as muscle breakdown.

[CptSmash]

Now, I'm not biochemist, although at times I wish I was, and I could be wrong on this, as I am frequently wrong.  But I'd like to point out several things about this correlation that you've found.

There didn't seem to be much interest in this post, however, for those who are interested:I have been without caffeine for 3 weeks now (I had a few decaf coffees in the first few days).  I haven't gained any fat, I feel slightly leaner if anything (despite trying to "bulk"), have gained around 6-7lbs in this time and am progressing well in the gym, making my targets and not missing a lift in this time.  Could be from CBL or CN by themselves.  Both would still work w/o caffeine.VerdictFrom my experience I would say that caffeine definitely reduces, if not nullifies, the benefits of creatine. I will be focusing on creatine and may have the occasional coffee if I feel dead before a major deadlift or squat sesh.  You can't really say that caffeine has been the sole cause of you weight gain in the gym, what doses are you taking, how many training sessions, are you injecting creatine, water consumption, blah, blah...this is bro science at it's finest, and not reliable.I will take a week or 2/3 off creatine at some point, maybe in a further 3 weeks time and will take advantage of the benefits of caffeine in this time period, before switching back to creatine.gremlin1267, yeah I couldn't see life without caffeine before I gave it a go but its not that hard a switch over really. And RE taking creatine to prevent muscle wasting, if caffeine limits creatine induced muscle strength/size (as I have foundas you are assuming by taking out one aspect of your lifestyle, whereas there are many issues with your lifestyle or how you approached this subject that are purely speculative...) it stands to reason that it would also inhibit any other benefits, such as muscle breakdown.

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with you here.  Both supplements work and I'm still not sold on the fact that they don't work together.  All that has been shown is that there is a report from Ergolog, which is a great resource, but you have to go back to the earlier research in order to truly figure out what is going on...can you truly base an opinion on this, "Imagine this: you give a 90 kg bodybuilder 45 g creatine for 6 days in a row. The effect is a 5 percent increase in the amount of phosphocreatine in his muscles, making him 10-20 percent stronger. If you give the same bodybuilder a daily 450 mg caffeine in addition, then there’s no increase in muscle strength. Belgian researchers published these results in 1996. [J Appl Physiol. 1996 Feb; 80(2): 452-7.]It would appear that creatine and caffeine get in each other’s way. But 6 years after the Belgian research was published, the results of a study done at the University in Luton were made known. These results seemed to suggest that creatine and caffeine were not affecting each other.So which is it, plus or minus on caffeine and creatine together...one says, yes on says no. [Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002 Nov; 34(11): 1785-92."Some of the science behind this seems flawed, and one cannot may make the correlation that caffeine doesn't work with creatine.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12439084  In this abstract, you can see that the subject is runners.  Creatine has long been shown not to affect endurance running.  Plus, the measures here were for the benefits of supplementation on caffeine dosing, acute dosing.  There "Body mass increased (P < 0.05) over the creatine supplementation period, and this increase was maintained for both caffeine and placebo trials."  That's strange, how did that happen.  Now, since this is only an abstract I would have to gain access to the full article to get the real deal.  Even so, busted in the abstract.The second study, states, "Muscle ATP concentration remained constant over the three experimental conditions. Cr and Cr+C increased (P < 0.05) muscle PCr concentration by 4-6%. Dynamic torque production, however, was increased by 10-23% (P < 0.05) by Cr but was not changed by Cr+C."  Again, an abstract, so we really don't know what's going on in there, but from this they make the assumption that creatine + caffeine don't work well together.  However, Cr+C ATP concentrations are the same...but other mechanisms could be at work here as well.  They use a dynamometer, which is isometric for one, you're not contracting against resistance.  Second, if caffeine affects AMPK which as my quick lookup to wikipedia finds (yes, I know not a reliable source, but AMPK is general knowledge at this point), "The net effect of AMPK activation is stimulation of hepatic fatty acid oxidation and ketogenesis, inhibition of cholesterol synthesis, lipogenesis, and triglyceride synthesis, inhibition of adipocyte lipolysis and lipogenesis, stimulation of skeletal muscle fatty acid oxidation and muscle glucose uptake, and modulation of insulin secretion by pancreatic beta-cells.[1]"  So if caffeine affect the AMPK, it activates more fatty acid production, thereby inhibiting a lot of glycogen-ATP/PC turnover in the muscle, which would in effect keep Phosphocreatine levels more stable and inhibit turnover once the mitochondria were cranking out ATP.  However, this is speculation as well.Truth is I doubt we can really concur these results.  Your results are great, I just wanted to point out that this has to be taken with a grain of salt.  This is the problem with trusting a lot of research studies.  We are forced to make assumptions without really knowing what's going, but if you get enough evidence to the contrary, you can probably make a safe assumption.  Just don't make an assumption on one study.

[mjoe]

Well done, you are exactly right, there are lots of factors that come into play, and so yes, take my findings with a pinch of salt.Perhaps most significantly I have had much better sleep since removing caffeine from my diet and this is potentially a very significant factor, which I should have mentioned. When I last browsed the forum, sleep seemed to be a problem that many people were having a problem with, so reducing caffeine intake may be one factor they can look at (but I'm sure they have worked that out already).I am not trying to pass this off as a scientific study, just relaying my personal findings in what I think is an interesting matter. However, for info, my training and diet remained much the same, and surprisingly I used creatine monohydrate powder (drank in water, not snorted or sucked up my ass).Thanks for copy and pasting the information I linked and fully understand you clown.  I'll report back if I find anything interesting to add but I'm due to switch up my training in 2 weeks, so probably not.  If anyone else tries removing caffeine I would be interested in their results, positive or negative.

[CptSmash]

Well done, you are exactly right, there are lots of factors that come into play, and so yes, take my findings with a pinch of salt.Perhaps most significantly I have had much better sleep since removing caffeine from my diet and this is potentially a very significant factor, which I should have mentioned. When I last browsed the forum, sleep seemed to be a problem that many people were having a problem with, so reducing caffeine intake may be one factor they can look at (but I'm sure they have worked that out already).I am not trying to pass this off as a scientific study, just relaying my personal findings in what I think is an interesting matter. However, for info, my training and diet remained much the same, and surprisingly I used creatine monohydrate powder (drank in water, not snorted or sucked up my ass).Thanks for copy and pasting the information I linked and fully understand you clown.  I'll report back if I find anything interesting to add but I'm due to switch up my training in 2 weeks, so probably not.  If anyone else tries removing caffeine I would be interested in their results, positive or negative.

mjoe,I apologize if I made you feel as though I was slamming you or your results.  I have often been found wrong on certain things and commentary from the forums has helped me direct my thinking to a more concrete line of thinking where you can get outside the box and think in much greater terms in regards to training and eating.  I'm just trying to voice an opinion on reliable sources and figure out exactly what's going on within the body.  The linking was more for other members, than yourself, as some people have trouble following what the research means.  Sometimes I don't even know what it means and have to call upon some old friends to say, "hey, just WTH does this mean."Thank you for your criticisms, and I appreciate your opinion with the increased sleep.  Sleep is far more important than anyone realizes, I just choose to ignore it at times.  Let me know how your next workout series goes sans caffeine.

[Big_R]

There didn't seem to be much interest in this post, however, for those who are interested:I have been without caffeine for 3 weeks now (I had a few decaf coffees in the first few days).  I haven't gained any fat, I feel slightly leaner if anything (despite trying to "bulk"), have gained around 6-7lbs in this time and am progressing well in the gym, making my targets and not missing a lift in this time.VerdictFrom my experience I would say that caffeine definitely reduces, if not nullifies, the benefits of creatine. I will be focusing on creatine and may have the occasional coffee if I feel dead before a major deadlift or squat sesh.I will take a week or 2/3 off creatine at some point, maybe in a further 3 weeks time and will take advantage of the benefits of caffeine in this time period, before switching back to creatine.gremlin1267, yeah I couldn't see life without caffeine before I gave it a go but its not that hard a switch over really. And RE taking creatine to prevent muscle wasting, if caffeine limits creatine induced muscle strength/size (as I have found) it stands to reason that it would also inhibit any other benefits, such as muscle breakdown.

This is kind of interesting...  I don't have any science or much data to back this up, just my own personal experience.  There was a time when i didn't pound the caffeine so hard pre-workout and was taking around 20g creatine before a workout and i think it worked well....  However, as of the past year i've been pounding the caffeine preworkout (400, sometimes 500mg) and only 5g creatine and i feel that something has changed.  The caffeine does more for me, in providing the stimulation/energy/focus that i need to do heavy lifts, but i remember when i took less caffeine and more creatine, it was like there was a reserve of strength hidden that would be activated every so often....  i'm really not sure how to describe it, but i think there could be some connection between the two.  Hopefully DH will present us with something if there really is some correlation between them, and that we can make better use of this combination.

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