The capsules are well-suitable for the "loading" phase since they can be taken in increased amount during the first 7-14 days to accelerate the rate of creatine absorption.
The capsules are rather big.
Produced by the leader in the fitness industry, the Optimum Nutrition's Creatine is one of the best supplements that can help you build muscle mass, increase the strength, and maximise your power.
Capsules
200 capsules (100 servings)
2 capsules twice a day
Creatine Monohydrate: 2.5 grams
None
The formula includes Beta-Alanine, Taurine, L-Glutamine, and Caffeine. With these extra elements, it'll make you feel extra energetic and help you recover after training quicker.
A low number of servings.
The Nu U Nutrition creatine is suitable just for anyone regardless of their type of activity. Enriched with BCA, it'll give you strong energised feeling and help you get the most out of your training.
Powder
450 g (~56 servings)
2 scoops (8 grams) once a day
Creatine Monohydrate: 2 grams
Dextrose, Beta-Alanine, Taurine, L-Glutamine, Citrulline-DL-Malate, Sweeteners (Aspartame, Acesulfam-K), Anti-caking agent, Caffeine Anhydrous, Flavouring, Colour (Beetroot Powder), Anti-Caking agent
This powder is totally tasteless. Hence, it can be easily consumed not only with water but also with any type of other liquid, be it juice, tea or coffee. It mixes quite well.
The included scoop is a bit inconvenient to use.
For the money to grams ratio, the MyProtein Creatine is an amazing product for those who need a basic creatine supplement. It has no chemical taste or additives. Just pure Creatine Monohydrate.
Powder
500 g (~167 servings)
1 scoop (3 grams) once a day
Creatine Monohydrate: 3 grams
None
The powder comes in a big 1-kilo pack. The bag reseals well and protects the creatine from exposure to moisture, thus, preventing it from clumps and hardening.
The texture is a little lumpy.
BULK POWDERS offers you a good post-workout creatine supplement that can help your muscles recover faster from intensive training. It'll help you build up your creatine levels and then maintain them.
Powder
1000 g (~200 servings)
1.5 scoops (~5 grams) once or twice a day
Creatine Monohydrate: 5 grams
None
This is an ultra-pure micronized creatine that is HPLC tested and DCD free. Also, it doesn't contain gluten, dairy, and GMO. Hence, it's suitable for allergy sufferers, vegans, and vegetarians.
One serving consists of 5 tablets.
The Opal Fitness creatine supplement can boost your performance significantly. It comes in an easy-to-swallow form, ridding you of the need to mess with powders and shakers.
Tablets
360 tablets (72 servings)
5 tablets once or twice a day
Creatine Monohydrate: 2 grams
None
Produced by the Leader
Optimum Nutrition needs no presentation. It's a trustworthy company that stands at the forefront of the fitness industry. For more than 30 years, the brand has been setting the Gold Standard in sports nutrition to help athletes worldwide achieve their goals. So, you can expect the highest quality and the premium raw materials from Optimum Nutrition products. And that's exactly what its Unflavoured Creatine offers.
The tablets are made with the pure Creatine Monohydrate, the most well-researched type of creatine and one of the most effective options on the market. The folks at Optimum Nutrition haven't added any additional ingredients, making it easier for users to control a diet.
The product has proven to support muscles, enhance energy reserves in them, and minimise the protein breakdown. That is to say, it adds strength and power to your high-intensity activities. And after exercises, it's able to speed up the recovery rates.
One bottle of the Optimum Nutrition's Creatine 2500 Caps consists of 200 capsules. Each of them includes 2.5 grammes of creatine. For the best results, the manufacturer suggests taking 2 capsules with breakfast, launch, and dinner. Also, it's recommended to drink at least 8 glasses of water daily.
Importantly, the capsules are well-suitable for the "loading" period since they can be taken in increased amount during the first 7-14 days.
Proudly Made in the UK
The Pre Workout Powder is proudly made in the UK by the Nu U Nutrition company. The company really knows its onions and meets the highest standards of quality in the world.
This Pre Workout supplement boasts a powerful formula that can give you a great energy boost for effective HIIT sessions. Actually, it's ideal for any athlete from runners or soccer players to weight lifters and endurance sportsmen. It'll definitely help your performance and give you much more alert and pump.
As the name suggests, the supplement should be taken prior to a workout session. Simply add two scoops of powder to your shaker and mix it with 300-400 ml of water. The supplement easily dissolves in water, adding a bit of berry flavour to it.
Besides creatine, the formula includes BCA (Beta-Alanine, Taurine, L-Glutamine) and Caffeine. With these extra elements, it'll make you feel extra energetic and hype. Plus, you'll feel a lot better after a workout.
The Best Value
If you're looking for a cheap old-school creatine powder that has no frills but does its job as expected, you've just found it. The MyProtein Creatine Monohydrate is moderately-priced and effective.
For less than £8, you can get a 500-gram pack that will be enough for about 157 servings. And if you pay just £3 more, you can already get a huge pack of 1000 grams and more than 300 servings. Sounds great, doesn't it?
With that, the powder is beneficial for anyone taking part in high-intensity exercises. It can help you switch on your beast mode, i.e., improve your strength, power, and accordingly increase physical performance.
Although it's not a micronised white powder, it has a very fine texture, almost like flour. Hence, it mixes well with liquids. It's totally tasteless and easily consumed not only with water but also with any other type of liquid, be it juice, tea or coffee.
All things considered, the MyProtein Creatine Monohydrate is best suitable for novice athletes that aren't ready to spend a fortune on their hobby. For the money-to-grams ratio, it's an amazing product for those who need a basic creatine supplement. It has no chemical taste or additives. Just pure Creatine Monohydrate.
Buy in BULK
The BULK POWDERS Creatine Monohydrate is another cheap product that works just as well as most other fancy versions of creatine. Lab-tested and verified, the creatine is supplied in a large 1-kilo pack, meaning it can support your muscles for quite a long while. The bag reseals well and protects the creatine from exposure to moisture, thus, preventing it from clumps and hardening.
First off, we would like to emphasise that this product will provide you with nothing but 99.9% ultra-pure micronised creatine monohydrate powder. While many other supplements can include up to 5% impurities, this one contains nothing to make you worry about your diet.
What differs this powder from most other products in our review is the fact that it's recommended for intake after workouts rather than before them. It's meant primarily to maintain the uptake in your muscles. With that, the product is also suitable for the loading phase.
It's common knowledge that initially 20 grams of creatine per day, taken for five days in a row, successfully raises muscle creatine content by 30-45%. Afterwards, you can keep the amount to 3-5 grams daily to maintain the saturation levels in muscles. For every gram, you should try to take 75 ml of water to support absorption. This powder has no flavour and can be mixed with various beverages including even protein shakes, BCAA and carbohydrate drinks.
In sum, this is a great post-workout supplement that can help your muscles recover faster from intensive training. It'll help you build up your creatine levels and then maintain them.
Convenient Tablet Form
Opal Fitness offers a good creatine supplement that can replenish your energy levels and fuel your muscles. You just take it twice a day and see how your muscular endurance skyrocket as you're doing squats or pushing heavy weights. Plus, it can be a real boon for those endurance sports where you need extra energy to reach your fitness goals.
Yet, many other creatine supplementations can bring similar benefits and what really sells this product is its super convenient form. To specify, it's not a powder, not huge capsules but small tablets that are very easy to swallow. The bottle includes 360 tablets for 72 servings (up to a ten-week supply).
Do note that each of the pills contains 400 mg, and to get a full serving, you should take 5 of them per time (2000 mg in total). If you train hard, you can take tablets twice a day.
The Opal Fitness Creatine is HPLC tested and thoroughly analysed for purity. The supplement is free from Dicyandiamide (DCD), gluten, dairy, GMO, so it's suitable for anyone from weekday warriors to professional athletes, from allergy sufferers to vegans. And a 60-day money-back guarantee is a great proof of its highest quality. If you dislike it, you can ask for a full refund with no questions asked. Actually, you have nothing to lose.
In all, the Opal Fitness creatine supplement can boost your performance significantly. It comes in an easy-to-swallow form, ridding you of the need to mess with powders and shakers.
What Is a Creatine Supplement?
A lot of people tend to be wary of sports nutrition. But creatine is a bit different from the rest of them. The fact that it is a chemical that is found in the human body makes it one of the safest natural substances out there. Now, we're not saying that it couldn't possibly harm you in any way, shape, or form and you should still consult your physician before taking any supplements, but these are as safe as they come. Plus, when it comes to building muscle by providing your body with the sort of energy excess that will allow you to improve your workout performance, there is nothing quite like creatine supplements.
Without going into some of the more technical details, this natural substance works by turning itself into phosphate after entering your body. The latter helps produce a substance by the name of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). And ATP, in turn, provides the energy that is necessary for muscle contractions, thus improving muscle gain. Finally, other than improving physical performance and muscle strength, a substantial number of individuals require creatine to battle the creatine deficiency syndromes, all of which affect so many parts of the body and cause such a number of diseases that we simply wouldn't be able to cover them all.
Hopefully, we don't need to tell you that creatine supplements won't do you any good if you're not willing to put in the work. So make sure to renew your gym subscription and if you do not have the time nor the desire to go to the gym, you can always get yourself a rowing machine or a smith machine and exercise at home. Besides creatine products, you may be also interested in whey protein powders and weight gainers that can help you build lean muscle mass.
Benefits of Creatine Supplements
Health Concerns
With the ideas of fitness and self-care rising in popularity over the last few years, the subject of sports nutrition has been one of the most controversial and debated topics of discussion. And, as always, a lot of people don't seem to be interested in exploring the middle ground, opting for one extreme or the other.
But, as we have said earlier, creatine is a bit different from the majority of other sports nutrition supplements. Again, creatine itself a nothing more than a chemical, a chemical that is present in the bodies of every one of us. Just this fact alone already makes it one of the safer substances in the sports supplements category. Creatine is easily one of the most researched sports supplements. And we can say with certainty that it shouldn't do any harm to your kidneys or your health in general. That said, there is still a lot of debate on the subject of creatine and its benefits, so we thought that it wouldn't hurt to shed some light on this subject without boring you too much with medical terms.
Muscle Strength
As per usual, there has been conducted a series of studies and most of them show varying results. Nevertheless, the majority of these studies arrive at a relatively similar consensus. According to the United States' National Library of Medicine, creatine as a substance is rated as “possibly effective” in terms of muscle strength improvement. It's been shown to be especially effective with older adults, though it is by no means ineffective for younger people.
Age-related muscle loss becomes an issue for every person once you approach a certain age. And there's been enough evidence to suggest that creatine's benefits include improving older individual's muscle strength, especially those who are doing resistance training in addition to the usual workout regimen. But, regardless of your age, taking creatine before and/or after a workout (depends on the creatine) will most certainly result in improved upper and lower body strength.
Athletic Performance
Athletics is a bit of a wide field, so we wouldn't be able to say that creatine always improves athletic performance. But creatine has been shown to improve those athlete's performance who are involved in rowing, soccer, and high jump. The same cannot be said about tennis players' serving ability. With sprinting, cycling, and various swimming activities, the results have been mixed. It clearly helps some people, while others do not seem to receive any benefits from it, so the researchers haven't been able to reach a consensus here.
High-Intensity Training
As far as the benefits of creatine and creatine supplements are concerned, high-intensity training is one of the more uncertain subjects. Some fitness enthusiasts claim that it helps them with those explosive, high-intensity exercises that require every bit of energy. But there hasn't been enough evidence to back up those claims.
Muscle Weight
If there's one thing we can say about creatine with utmost certainty, this thing will help you gain weight. It is easily the best substance out there if you're looking to add some muscles to your frame. Now, to be fair, some of that weight will include water. But that water weight is actually good for you as it makes muscles fuller and bigger.