I’m using it and it is working… but im having trouble wrapping my brain around how it works. I’ve done a ton of research watched videos and im still lost.
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Your body generates energy by converting a chemical called ATP into a different chemical called ADP. The issue with this is that ATP isn’t stable – even if your body isn’t using the ATP, it will slowly degrade into ADP on its own, releasing a lot of waste energy in the process. Because of how much energy is wasted from the spontaneous degradation of ATP into ADP, your body only maintains a very small amount of ATP at any given time.
The small amount of ATP normally available only provides enough energy for your body to run for a few seconds, and ATP isn’t easy to produce. Creatine is what allows your body to function for longer periods of time.
Creatine is easy for your body to create and extremely stable – it only has one chemical reaction that it normally undergoes in your body, which is to convert ADP back into ATP. So when your body uses ATP (or the ATP just spontaneously degrades), creatine comes in and sacrifices itself to turn ADP back into ATP.
One way to think about this process is that ATP is the motor that drives your body, while creatine is the battery that supplies it with energy.
But that’s not why creatine helps with muscle growth. In addition to its ability to turn ADP into ATP, creatine is, in and of itself, a growth regulator. High concentrations of creatine signal muscles to grow, even in the absence of exercise.
That has nothing to do with creatine’s role in turning ADP into ATP. Muscle cells just have receptors that detect creatine concentrations and increase muscle growth when the concentration of creatine is high.
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