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Originally Posted by Bossnass
My understanding is that the key to success with creatine is hydration: it helps hydrate your muscles so they both get bigger (temporary) and you can work them harder and longer.
Caffiene is a diuretic. It makes your body get rid of water.
Therefore, and I have been told this by fitness people (and other gym rats), caffiene and creatine conflict. It won't hurt you, but you won't be getting near as much benefit from it.
On a side note, creatine probably won't help you drop 15 lbs. I generally gained weight (water and muscle mass) when I used it. Approriate diet and cardio would be better.
(Back in the day, I was a semi-regular creatine using athlete)
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I would like to add a little bit.
Our muscles main enegy source is something calle ATP. the TP stands for Tri-phosphate. This is imortant becasue when our bodies use the adenisine triphosphate, it becomes diphosphate, or ADP. the very cool thing about creatine is that it actually in the body is in the form of phosphocreatine, and the phospho part is what is so very cool. that phosphate can be used to restore teh ADP to ATP, and thus our muscles have more energy stores imediatly ready to go work.
THis allows one to work out just a bit harder, and gain just a bit more strength with each workout.
Caffeines realationship to creatine is still not well established. I have found several sources that say dont mix the two, and other say it doesnt matter. I personally noticed a huge difference when i quit drinking caffiene. could be placebo, however. I just felt like if i was working out as hard as i was,i might as well do anything i could to help the creatine work.
Hydration: this is key, as stated above, but i want to talk about something else. Creatine is cleared by the kidneys. It also is cleared with 0 order kenitics... ( i believe).. so that means that you can only clear so much now matter how much you take in.. like EtOH. If you have ANY renal insufficiency, DO NOT take this before talking to your doctor. I worked with a nephrologist for two weeks earlier this year, and we talked about this. Just be on the safe side. Acute renal failure is not something to joke around with.
cheers