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Could anyone summarize and make a little sense of this thread?

First a newbie is asking for some improvements in his routine, and now we're trying to decide if it's a good idea for him to get up at night to drink protein? It's all pretty crazy.

Stone--work out a simple routine and do it. Eat plenty of good food at normal times, and get plenty of sleep. There is no reason to get up at night to drink protein! Really.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

First off, creatine has nothing to do with protein intake. Second, can you show me studies that say that creatine levels drop after ingestion?

Then there's this confusion about starvation. Protein takes lots of time to absorb. Whey is quite fast going into your system, but some foods can take 5-7 hours to fully digest and be gone. So the fasting only begins after so many hours. Secondly, the moment you stop digesting anything isn't a moment muscle starts burning. No no, it's fat and glycogen that go first. Especially when sleeping. Sleeping releases great deal of hormones that protect and build your muscle, not burn it. You don't have to worry about sleeping beign somewhat katabolic, it's quite the opposite. The 3-hour rule is not needed and isn't really proved by science. If you have trouble getting enough calories with your meals, then eat more often. Otherwise, don't stress it.



You can always try if it works better on the B day, no-one is stopping you.

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Prove the impossible!

In reply to Jungledoc:

you're right, I started off with a question and then gradually started to address all of my training concerns/questions in this thread.
Sorry about it



In reply to Dub:

I've read that about creatine on wikipedia, which states 3 sources:

A single 5 g (5000 mg) oral dose in healthy adults results in a peak plasma creatine level of approximately 120 mg/L at 1–2 hours post-ingestion. Creatine has a fairly short elimination half-life, averaging just less than 3 hours, so to maintain an elevated plasma level it would be necessary to take small oral doses every 3–6 hours throughout the day (from en dot wikipedia dot org/wiki/Creatine#Pharmacokinetics)

the 3 sources about this part of article:
^ Kamber M, Koster M, Kreis R, Walker G, Boesch C, Hoppeler H. Creatine supplementation--part I: performance, clinical chemistry, and muscle volume. Med. Sci. Sports Exer. 31: 1763-1769, 1999.
^ Deldicque L, Décombaz J, Zbinden Foncea H, Vuichoud J, Poortmans JR, Francaux M. Kinetics of creatine ingested as a food ingredient. Eur. J. Appl. Physiol. 102: 133-143, 2008.
^ R. Baselt, Disposition of Toxic Drugs and Chemicals in Man, 8th edition, Biomedical Publications, Foster City, CA, 2008, pp. 366-368.


Again, thanks for your reply. I didn't know or wasn't sure about it

ephs started the trend
of newbie creating his own super thread
we're a lenient bunch of eager helpers, or something like that

i have a superthread, but i think emil3m started the trend.
i'm saying it again: we need a thread for quick questions. the one in the sticky is closed. i'm opening new threads all the time, but i could be opening a lot more, if i wouldn't have a superthread

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"his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see" - muhammad ali

Okay, here's the problem. Creatine isn't meant to be rolling around in plasma. Creatine isn't stored in your blood vessels, nor has it any purpouse there. Creatine is the main fuel for Creatine Phosphate, which is found on your muscles. This CP provides the first seconds of maximal force production with ATP, it only lasts but a mere minute and under. It has nothing to do with protein intake. You get creatine from meats, and it actually recovers quite well after the performance. The reason for creatine use is to increase the capacity the muscle can hold and use creatine. It also ties water in some sources, which might cause bulking. Muscle creatine levels won't drop unless you are actually exercising. Secondly, I wouldn't recommend a use for creatine over 5g-10g per day unless it's a loading phase (up to 20g a day), but the loading phase shouldn't last but a week or thereabouts.

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Prove the impossible!

In reply to everybody:

Sorry if my questions are creating trouble to some of you. I didn't know it was against rules to open a new thread for questions concering a training program.



In reply to Dub:

I thought that just as nutrients (like protein etc), it'd have been better to have them available all thru the day rather than eating larger amount just twice a day.

I've read (on wikipedia article about creatine supplements) that creatine also acts as a myostatin blocker [1], a DHT increaser [2], a testosterone increaser and an IGF-3 increaser [3], so I thought that to have a continous function on them, it'd have been better to split the daily 5g in 6 different meals.

Thank you


[1] Saremi, A.; Gharakhanloo, R.; Sharghi, S.; Gharaati, M.R.; Larijani, B.; Omidfar, K. (2010). "Effects of oral creatine and resistance training on serum myostatin and GASP-1". Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology 317 (1–2): 25–30.

[2] Van Der Merwe, Johann; Brooks, Naomi E; Myburgh, Kathryn H (2009). "Three Weeks of Creatine Monohydrate Supplementation Affects Dihydrotestosterone to Testosterone Ratio in College-Aged Rugby Players". Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine 19 (5): 399–404.

[3] Burke, DG; Candow, DG; Chilibeck, PD; MacNeil, LG; Roy, BD; Tarnopolsky, MA; Ziegenfuss, T (2008). "Effect of creatine supplementation and resistance-exercise training on muscle insulin-like growth factor in young adults". International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism 18 (4): 389–98.

It practically doesn't really matter. It's still the same amount. Every gram still goes to the same place. Eat protein whenever you want. It's easiest to get the proper amount if you eat protein at every meal.

Okay, good that you research, but look a little deeper. All the research used the protocol of once a day, or some use twice a day. Not one I have found would use 6 a day. And still get good results. It's still the same amount. I don't even know what >1g of creatine does to your body. Does it even work? Of course you can load creatine whenever and how many times a day you want, you'll just have to see the results yourself, there is no research in my acknowledge to support the facts.

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Prove the impossible!

My point is that we are facilitating a newbie in over-complicating things. When we have a lot of relatively esoteric knowledge, it's easy to try to share all of it at once.

Stone seems to be overwhelmed with all the complexity, feeling that it's important to get the supplements, meal timing, etc., just right or he won't make progress. Instead of reassuring him that he doesn't really have to worry about a lot of this stuff, we have just fueled the complexity. I feel we would serve beginners better if we just said "don't worry about that" more often.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

Stone:

Read the sticky, "The be all and end all of all training advice." Do not read beyond the first post.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

I see, thank you everybody for your help.

I know I may have overthinked but maybe my logic is just like this: if I have the possibility to make two steps, why should I limit myself to one just because of something which is holding me back without knowing?

However I take your points and I think that luckily I'm sticking to them :)


Thanks again