Should You Mix Creatine and Caffeine?

Some of you may have heard or read out there that it is not a good idea to mix creatine with caffeine? Have you ever wondered why? Well, here are a few answers for you.

Theory 1 – Water Retention Problems

One theory out there is that creatine can help the body to retain more water, but caffeine acts as a diuretic. So really the effects could cancel each other out.

This makes sense when you think about it, but according to CreatineMonohydrate.net this isn’t the real reason why you shouldn’t mix the two.

Theory 2 – Muscle Contractions and Relaxation

Let me quote from the article to explain another theory of why caffeine and creatine supplements don’t mix:

Making this mental link is erroneous and assumes that water retention by skeletal muscle, otherwise known as muscle volumizing, is the source of creatine’s physical benefit. Although increasing the girth of our muscles, muscle volumizing has no proven effect on strength. In other words, size alone isn’t the basis for strength, rather augmented energy stores (ATP and PCr) and increased contractile proteins (increased protein synthesis) are the true source of strength. Our muscles get bigger when we train because the amount of proteins they contain increases. Blood flow to our muscle also increases causing them to swell. With reference to training, therefore, size and strength do go hand in hand. On the other hand, inflating our muscles with water without the benefit of these other biochemical processes accomplishes very little, athletically speaking.

A more feasible explanation is that caffeine interferes with the contractile properties of muscle.

Would it surprise you that relaxation and power are one in the same? In truth, strength is the outcome of the coordinated interplay between muscle contraction and relaxation. For example, when performing a biceps curl the triceps must relax at the same time as the biceps contract for the bar to rise. If both muscle groups remain contracted (or relaxed) the bar goes absolutely nowhere! In other words, without the coordinated relaxation of antagonistic muscle groups there is no power. On a mechanistic level it is the presence of calcium that triggers contraction. Calcium must therefore be stingily hidden away into special storage compartments when muscle relaxation is required and only released from these intramuscular storage sites when contraction is desired.

It is thus relevant that one of PCr’s primary roles in muscle is to provide the energy to return calcium into these reservoirs. In this manner creatine (PCr) assists in muscle relaxation and enhances our athletic performance. Interestingly, caffeine has the opposite effect of allowing calcium to escape from these intracellular calcium storage sites. Caffeine would thus hamper muscle relaxation. In agreement with these findings a recent study has shown that caffeine interferes with creatine’s ability to facilitate muscle relaxation, especially during moments of fatigue (ref. 2). Caffeine might thusly confound the ability of PCr to store away calcium and in doing so nullify part of creatine’s benefit.

So to summarize, it’s not just about water retention but the ability of the muscles to contract in order to grow. According to this article, caffeine interferes with what creatine does when it comes to letting the muscles relax!

The On-Going Debate

While the guys at CreatineMonohydrate.net make a very good argument, there is still a lot of discussion out there about whether or not you should mix creatine and caffeine.

John Berardi from PrecisionNutrition.com had a different viewpoint in an article published at Bodybuilding.com.

Berardi’s argument is that the study that everyone bases the ‘not creatine caffeine mix’ on had some major flaws in it’s design. There have been other studies done since then that have shown that caffeine really didn’t have a negative effect on creatine.

So is it an Evil Combination?

So what should you do? If you’re taking creatine should you completely cut out the caffeine? This may not be the best answer, but you’ll have to do some testing and see what works for you.

You see, people react differently to creatine and almost any other supplement. So if you are taking creatine and also drinking a lot of caffeine, maybe try going off the caffeine for a few weeks and see if you notice a diffference. If you do, then there’s your answer!

Here’s a quote from John Berardi talking about this:

Another issue with creatine supplementation is the fact that some individuals respond very well while others do not. This may have something to do with initial creatine levels when starting a creatine cycle or it may have to do with enhanced or impaired creatine uptake in certain individuals. So what if there was a way to increase creatine uptake into the muscle to potentially enhance uptake in both responders and non-responders? Again, a creatine combination may take care of this as well.

So now the question is what are some other possible combinations that could be more effective? In the quoted article Berardi gives a few suggestions, each of which are based on decreasing discomfort caused by creatine and increasing its uptake:

• Dissolve your creatine in a warm beverage. By doing so, due to the laws of thermodynamics, the creatine is solubilized.
• Use liquid creatine products that contain some type of glycerin or carbohydrate-like substance to solubilize the creatine. Although there is no good data to suggest that these products are better than regular creatine, theoretically they could help absorption. Although theoretically this does make sense, creatine tends to be unstable in liquid if suspended for too long.
• Take creatine with a meal that includes carbs and protein to create an insulin spike which has been shown to increase creatine uptake.

Conclusion

No matter what supplement you’re looking at, you’re going to get different viewpoints on the best ways to use it, what not to use it with, etc. I recommend that you read the material you find, but also remember that in the end all that matters is how your body reacts to it. Do a little safe testing and see what works for you in the end.

References:

http://www.creatinemonohydrate.net/creatine_newsletter_19.html
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/berardi5.htm

Related posts:

• Supplements for Your Goal: Build Muscle