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can any1 help ive just ordered big red shark creatine mono and going to tryt to bulk up a bit for new rugby season 2012 i am 34 and weigh 10st 8 wots the best time to take it also i ve neva done weights is there any alternative to achieving my goal without the weights

marky147 wrote:can any1 help ive just ordered big red shark creatine mono and going to tryt to bulk up a bit for new rugby season 2012 i am 34 and weigh 10st 8 wots the best time to take it also i ve neva done weights is there any alternative to achieving my goal without the weights

Never heard of the brand, and a little annoyed that I can't find a profile for their products on their website. As long as it's straight-up Creatine Monohydrate, and not ethyl-ester, or other crap, or loaded up with maltodextrin and fillers and whatever else the supplement industry has deemed the next high-profit garbage supp, then creatine is creatine.

On taking the stuff... personally I find load phases effective, though some folks don't, and there's no solid evidence either way. If you elect to do a load phase, you're looking at 5g, 5 times a day, for 5 days. Ideally you'd want to spread those out across your day. After you do the load phase, or if you elect to forego it, you will take 5g immediately before your work out, and 5g immediately after, mixed with not less than 8fl oz (240mL) of water. To get it to actually dissolve, though, I find it more effective to use my big ol' 28fl oz shaker bottle, put 8oz of almost boiling hot water, dissolve the creatine, and top off the bottle with stone cold water to get it down to a drinkable temp. It means you're pounding a whole crap ton of water in one go, sure, but it makes the grit be gone and I notice a difference in my workouts since I started doing it this way.

JoH wrote:To get it to actually dissolve, though, I find it more effective to use my big ol' 28fl oz shaker bottle, put 8oz of almost boiling hot water, dissolve the creatine, and top off the bottle with stone cold water to get it down to a drinkable temp.

I second that approach. I'm a tea drinker, too, and have found that I can't detect the flavor or gritty texture of creatine if I add some to hot green tea...