Can Creatine Build Muscle Without Exercise?

How Can Creatine Build Muscle Without Exercise?

Author: Dr. Stephen Chaney

The ability of creatine to build muscle with high intensity, short duration exercise like sprinting or strength training is well established. Recent research also suggests that creatine may help protect the brain when it is under stress.

But can creatine help protect muscle when it is under stress.

It is well known that we tend to lose muscle mass as e age, a process called sarcopenia. We also tend to lose muscle mass when we restrict calories in an effort to lose weight.

The usual recommendations to prevent loss of muscle mass under those conditions have been to increase protein intake and add, or increase the intensity of, strength training.

But one of the top experts in the field of creatine research asked whether creatine alone might help prevent the loss of muscle mass under those conditions and designed a study to test that hypothesis. He also looked at the effect of creatine supplementation on brain function. However, in the interest of simplicity, I won’t discuss that part of his study.

The results surprised me. He reported that creatine alone helped prevent the loss of muscle mass. In fact, his study suggested that creatine alone stimulated an increase in muscle mass.

So, I asked two questions:

#1: How can creatine increase muscle mass without exercise?

#2: How good is the evidence for the claim that creatine can build muscle without exercise?

How Can Creatine Build Muscle Without Exercise?

As a biochemist I like to look at the mechanism proposed for health claims. In my mind, it adds to the legitimacy of the claim if the underlying mechanism is well understood. In the case of the effect of creatine plus exercise on muscle mass, the mechanism is clear.

We can think of creatine as an energy bank.

When the cell has plenty of ATP, it makes a deposit into its energy bank by converting creatine into creatine-phosphate.

When the cell needs energy quickly it makes a withdrawal from its energy by converting creatine phosphate to creatine and generating ATP.

In muscles, another analogy would be to think of the role of creatine to be like your car’s battery. The battery provides the energy needed to start the car and get things going Once you are moving down the road battery gets recharged, so it is ready the next time you need it.

You can think of creatine as being used like a car battery to “jump-start” high intensity exercise.

It takes a few seconds for muscle energy metabolism to go into overdrive. Creatine-phosphate stores fill that gap.

Creatine supplementation is well accepted for sports requiring short, intense bursts of power, speed, and strength, such as football, basketball, hockey, soccer, wrestling, bodybuilding, and sprinting. It is supported by dozens of published clinical studies.

The rationale is not hard to understand.

Muscle normally contains enough creatine-phosphate to support around 10 seconds of high-intensity exercise.

Creatine-phosphate supplementation increases muscle creatine stores by 20-40%. That supports another 2-4 seconds of exercise.

That may not sound like much. But muscle energy metabolism does not kick in until creatine-phosphate stores are exhausted, so the total amount of high-intensity power attained during each rep of a workout is increased by 2-4 seconds.

Over a period of weeks or months that extra 2-4 seconds of high intensity exercise during each rep of training translates into real gains in lean muscle mass, muscle strength, and exercise performance.

However, the mechanism by which creatine supplementation increased muscle mass in the absence of exercise is not clear, and the authors of this study did not propose a mechanism to support their findings. As a biochemist, I find that concerning.

How Was The Study Done?

This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study. The investigators enrolled 64 healthy adults aged 45-65 (average age = 54.5) from the community. The characteristics of the participants were:

Sex = 62.5% female.
BMI = 29.9 (obese).
Fat percentage = 36.8% (obese).

In short, this was an older, obese population, which unfortunately describes millions of Americans.

Everyone one in the study was put on a weight loss diet that followed the American Heart Association’s recommendations (55% carbohydrate, 15% protein, and 30% fat) and restricted their energy intake by 300-500 calories/day.

This involved measuring each participant’s resting energy expenditure prior to the study and creating an individualized diet plan for them. Adherence to the prescribed diet plan was tracked using MyFitnessPal, a validated dietary tracking application. It was used to track four-day food logs at the beginning, week 6, and week 12 of the study. That resulted in participants being put on diets of 1,200-1,600/day.

The participants were then randomly assigned into four groups:

No exercise + weight loss diet + creatine.

No exercise + weight loss diet + placebo.

Exercise + weight loss diet + creatine.

Exercise + weight loss diet + placebo.

The results of each intervention were compared at week 6 and 12 in a pairwise fashion.

The exercise intervention consisted of a supervised program resistance and aerobic exercise three times per week and to accumulate 10,000 steps on non-training days.

The creatine group took 5 grams of creatine monohydrate twice a day. The placebo group took identical-looking packets of maltodextrin twice a day.

Let me cut to the chase and answer this question first.

The creatine, no exercise group increased muscle mass more than either the placebo, no exercise group or the placebo, exercise group.

- It increased muscle mass by around 2.4 pounds at 12 weeks while both placebo groups lost muscle mass, and the difference was statistically significant.

This is despite a relatively low protein intake. At 15% protein intake and 1,200 to 1,600 calories per day, the participants in this study were only getting 45-60 g/day of protein.

- This barely meets the RDA for protein, which is based on the protein needs of young, healthy men.

- Most experts recommend significantly higher protein intakes for adults over 50 and adults on weight loss diets to avoid loss of muscle mass.

In addition, the creatine, no exercise group also experienced a statistically significant increase in one measure of exercise performance, bench press performance.

But to put it into perspective, the creatine plus exercise group achieved better. benefits in body composition and performance than the creatine, no exercise group. For example:

The exercise plus creatine group increased muscle mass by 3.7 pounds at 12 weeks. It was also the only group to achieve a significant loss in fat mass and percent body fat.

The exercise plus creatine group achieved a significant increase in multiple performance tests, including leg press, bench press, leg press lifting volume, treadmill time, and time to exhaustion during an incremental maximum exercise test.

The authors concluded, “Creatine supplementation (10 g/day) without exercise training increased lean tissue mass, strength, and muscular endurance…in middle-aged and older adults [on a weight loss program]. Creatine supplementation during an exercise and weight-loss diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults promoted a greater reduction in body fat percentage [and] gains in muscular strength and endurance…”

“These findings may have important implications for middle-aged and older adults seeking to reduce body fat while maintaining muscle mass…Additional research should evaluate the effects of creatine supplementation in active aging and clinical populations who may benefit.”

What Does This Study Mean For You?

Let me start by asking, “Is the study true?”

It is a well-designed study by one of the top experts in creatine research. And it is supported by one previous study that reached the same conclusion.

However, it was a very small, preliminary study. There were 64 participants divided into four groups, and the groups were not of equal size because some participants dropped out. Group size ranged from 13 to 20.

And, as I pointed out above, there is no obvious metabolic rationale for creatine having those benefits in the absence of exercise, and the investigators offered none.

However, the good news is that this is a novel finding that is contrary to conventional thinking. So, you can count on future studies to test this hypothesis.

My advice is to stay tuned. We’ll learn about the truth of this hypothesis in the years to come. I will keep you posted.

In addition, this study also reported that the results with creatine + exercise were far superior to creatine alone.

So, don’t cancel your gym membership yet. If you are over 50 and/or are on a weight loss diet and wish to maintain or enhance your muscle mass, the best advice remains:

Add or increase the intensity and frequency of your exercise program with an emphasis on resistance training.

Increase your protein intake. For the latest recommendations, click here.

Add 5-10 g/day of creatine monohydrate. It is safe and effective. Just make sure you keep adequately hydrated.

The Bottom Line

It is well established that creatine helps you build muscle when you are exercising. But a recent study suggests creatine can help you build muscle even without exercise.

That’s a novel finding that goes against conventional wisdom. In this article, I ask:

Is it true?

If it is true, what does it mean for you?

For more information about the study and what it means for you, read the article above.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

My posts and “Health Tips From the Professor” articles carefully avoid claims about any brand of supplement or manufacturer of supplements. However, I am often asked by representatives of supplement companies if they can share them with their customers.

My answer is, “Yes, as long as you share only the article without any additions or alterations. In particular, you should avoid adding any mention of your company or your company’s products. If you were to do that, you could be making what the FTC and FDA consider a “misleading health claim” that could result in legal action against you and the company you represent.

For more detail about FTC regulations for health claims, see this link.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/health-products-compliance-guidance

_______________________________________________________________________________

About The Author

Dr. Chaney has a BS in Chemistry from Duke University and a PhD in Biochemistry from UCLA. He is Professor Emeritus from the University of North Carolina where he taught biochemistry and nutrition to medical and dental students for 40 years. Dr. Chaney won numerous teaching awards at UNC, including the Academy of Educators “Excellence in Teaching Lifetime Achievement Award”. Dr Chaney also ran an active cancer research program at UNC and published over 100 scientific articles and reviews in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In addition, he authored two chapters on nutrition in one of the leading biochemistry text books for medical students.

Since retiring from the University of North Carolina, he has been writing a weekly health blog called “Health Tips From the Professor”. He has also written two best-selling books, “Slaying the Food Myths” and “Slaying the Supplement Myths”. And most recently he has created an online lifestyle change course, “Create Your Personal Health Zone”. For more information visit https://chaneyhealth.com.

For the past 54 years Dr. Chaney and his wife Suzanne have been helping people improve their health holistically through a combination of good diet, exercise, weight control and appropriate supplementation.