Creatine supplementation has become a common practice among competition athletes participating
in different sports over the last few years. The mechanism by which supplementary
creatine could have potential ergogenic effects would be an increased muscle creatine
and phosphocreatine concentration, leading to a higher rate of ATP resynthesis, a
delay in the onset of muscular fatigue and a facilitated recovery during repeated
bouts of high-intensity exercise. A critical review of the literature reveals that
these ergogenic effects, when found, have been generally shown in untrained subjects
performing several exercise bouts under laboratory conditions. The limited body of
scientific data available concerning highly trained athletes performing single competition-like
exercise tasks indicates that this type of population does not benefit from creatine
supplementation. Therefore, the widespread use of creatine ingestion to improve competition
performance does not seem to be justified. The potential interest of creatine supplementation
for elite athletes could be related to an increased ability to perform repeated high-intensity
exercise bouts,, either during training or during competition in sports in which repeated
efforts are required (e.g. soccer, basketball), but this possibility needs scientific
confirmation.
Key words
Creatine - sports - performance - ATP - phosphcreatine - metabolism - ammonia - ergogenic
aids
