Extreme

Nath, I think the answer could well lie in your last post, "I followed holland and barrets instructions to the letter", Holland and Barrat supplements are made from the cheapest ingredients possible and while creatine monohydrate is the same no matter which brand supplies it BUT during the manufacturing process there are a lot of heavy metals attached to it and unless the C.mono is purified correctly it will cause stomach upset and interfere with absorption.

Think about this, when the cost of whey went up with every supplement company across the world why on earth would H&B do a half price whey offer? Is it bcos they are kind and care about their customers or bcos they don't want to make large profits? We all know thats not the case so why then the discount? Because their stuff is p1ss cheap and they are relying on selling it on cost and on people with limited knowledge buying it.

We had the chance of supplying H&B a few years ago and Extreme Nutrition declined that chance bcos they wanted our stuff for next to nothing and wanted to be able to do fancy offers which would have meant our gyms and other outlets would not have been competitive with them. They also wanted crazy credit terms which I thought were unrealistic. I tell you all this so you see I'm not just having a random dig at them but I have had experience of the way they do business and what motivates them as a company.

Tall, I wrote a paper on "The Effects of Creatine Monohydrate on Human Muscle Tissue" when I was studying bio-medical sciences and found after reading many studies that the loading phase only speeds creatine saturation in the muscle cell but cell saturation after 1 month was the same whether you loaded or followed a 5g daily protocol. The biggest differences between approaches was on the 5g daily course the user experienced vastly less kidney stress and they had less water retention, bloating, cases of stomach upset and had saved a load of creatine from being p1ssed down the loo!

Personally I would not load on mono but use in a 3g twice daily approach (breakfast and post workout), I've found this works best for me bcos I'm naturally a fattie and suffer from water retention easily and used to always get the sh1ts during loading. Also if your a porker (like me!) do you really want to use a product best absorbed when taken with simple sugars?

Mega doses of creatine mono do work well with insulin, but you'll still have the creatinine and related side effects to contend with.

Ali, tell me what gains are for keeps? Anabolically increased gains go when you come off, same with GH, NO2/Arginine pump products give you an enhanced pump for at best a few hours but everyone is blowing a fortune on these and even protein powder or solid proteins will not result in permanent gains if the intake is kept up or if you back off your training for a while.

Creatine is a cell volumiser which stretched the muscle fascia thus theoretically making it easier for the muscle to grow, just like NO2/arginine products are supposedly doing just now BUT creatine IS an essential energy source burned whenever you use your muscles from blinking to bonking so surely creatine is a better choice? The additional energy in your muscle cells must be of benefit to every athlete in an anaerobic sport and the additional water in the muscle cells give you more mass which will help with leverage etc in strongman and powerlifting movements.

I could go on further about creatine but I'm boring myself now so think I should shut up now.