One of the most common conversations I have with parents and athletes is about supplements, but especially creatine.

And the most common question I get with creatine is, does creatine build muscle?

Creatine itself does not directly produce an anabolic effect. However, what it provides as far as your energy systems are increasing your body's ability to increase muscle size, strength, and power.

Creatine is produced naturally in the body, but only in small amounts. It's stored in the muscle as phosphocreatine. In terms of training and athletic performance, phosphocreatine is energy for very high-intensity exercises in short amounts of time.

Supplementing with creatine can increase the stores of phosphocreatine 10-40%. This allows your body to train and compete at higher intensities for more significant amounts of time.

So, in the event of building muscle, creatine can help you train longer and with more intensity—all beneficial for the anabolic process.

Creatine supplementation has been shown to increase sprint performance by 5% and power up to 5-15% in short-term supplementation. In addition, long-term has demonstrated positive effects on lean body mass over time.

My advice is always this:

Get these two down first:

Nutrition
Sleep

Once you nail these two, combining creatine can be a game-changer for your strength, muscle-building, and overall performance.