Understanding what creatine really is, and understanding the different kinds of creatines that are out there, and all kinds of other creatine related products really comes down to your solid understanding of how creatine is created in the body in the first place, what it actually does, and in what way do you benefit from it.

In this article I am not only going to break down different kinds of creatine, in such a way that you can fully understand what is on the back label of your favorite products, but I also want you to have an almost perfect understanding of the actual physiology behind creatine and what is it doing to our bodies on a cellular level.

What is creatine actually? Creatine is something that’s naturally created by the body to serve as a carrier of energy and its transfering agent, that allows energy to be passed from mitochondria to the rest of the cell.

Creatine is formed in our liver and our kidneys from three amino acids that are considered non-essential: Arginine, Glycine and Methionine. This fact right here allows me to address it once and for all that creatine is not something artificial and unsafe for the human body, the way many people who don’t understand human physiology like to label it, but something that our body itself produces, and is able to readily and easily get rid off of if there is any excess. Our kidneys and liver produce up to 2g of creatine per day.

What is important for us to know in order to further understand the way creatine operates within our body, is that it is predominantly stored in our skeletal muscle tissue. This is exactly why it has such an important role when it comes down to muscle building and strength training.

Human body ends up holding 3.5g of creatine per every pound of our skeletal muscle tissue, but the actual capacity, meaning the maximum amount of creatine that the pound of human muscle is able of holding, is 5g.

Now we have to understand what is going on when creatine actually creates energy. If we understand the simple method that stands behind it, it makes absolutely everything workout-creatine related that much more clear.

It all starts in the mitochondria. Mitochondria is the energy powerhouse of the cell, plain and simple. It takes everything that our body considers as a fuel, ketone bodies, fatty acids and glucose into what is known as adenosine triphosphate or ATP. It basically takes all the food that you eat and converts it into energy. And creatine itself is behind a lot of activity there.

You see, our mitochondria don’t really do much until we’re in an active state. If a muscle cell is dormant and we’re not moving, mitochondria isn’t really firing their engines and creatine isn’t really working. However, as soon as the activity starts, the creatine that is naturally made by the body rapidly travels to the mitochondria, where it works with the ATP by stealing a molecule from it, one phosphate molecule, and creating the creatine phosphate, leaving adenosine diphosphate or ADP.

This creatine phosphate system is what allows our body to make and utilize energy for all our activities that require a large energetic output. What creatine phosphate then does, is it travels to a different part of the cell, where it drops off that one phosphate molecule it took, by forming ATP again, thus completing the full energy producing cycle.

I’ve probably lost you here to wonder where does the exact energy come into this equation. Well, the actual energy is created in the moment of creatine “stealing” that one phosphate molecule from the ATP. It’s the very force of separation of this phosphate molecule that creates the energy.

Now that I have explained in full the entire role of creatine that it plays within our muscular system and our body, and the way it produces energy for our activities, it’s time to talk about the different kinds of supplementary creatine that are out there, not only because I consider it extremely important for you to understand what each of these creatine forms is doing to your body and how it operates within it, but to actually help you ultimately save money.

Creatine Monohydrate

Creatine monohydrate is the main form and the most basic kind of supplementary creatine available out there, composed of 90% creatine and 10% water, and is often one of the key ingredients in almost all the major creatine-related supplements that you have used.

It has been shown time and again that simple creatine monohydrate does in fact improve strength. Numerous studies have shown that it may increase strength gains from weight training by an average of 10%. Now, while it may not sound as much to you, the extra rep that creatine monohydrate makes possible is the difference between just fatiguing the muscle and ripping it apart (causing hypertrophy), and hypertrophy is what makes the muscle grow. So basically, the extra strength that comes from creatine is what indirectly causes you to build muscle, of course, with a proper workout routine, nutrition, and rest.

When it comes to creatine monohydrate, there are micronized versions of it. Those are basically instantized versions, where the active creatine particles are made to be up to 20 times smaller than in the regular creatine monohydrate powder, so that they can presumably be absorbed better, even though there isn’t a whole lot of science behind those claims, to prove that in fact it is in any way superior.

Buffered creatine/ Chelated creatine

Now let’s talk about this other, also popular version of creatine, known as buffered or chelated creatine. It’s basically creatine with an added alkaline component to it. The reason it became popular over time is primarily thanks to the human understanding of the acidic environment of our stomach and our digestive system, where it is thought that due to that harsh acidity, creatine wouldn’t be able to survive and get absorbed properly. By attaching an alkaline component to it (magnesium for example), it supposedly increases its absorption by offsetting the stomach’s acidity.

While in theory that does kind of make sense, the science says otherwise. There was a study published in the Journal of International Society of Sports and Nutrition that took a look at particularly male participants taking a creatine supplement. They were divided into two groups, where each group was given one form of creatine. Group A got creatine monohydrate, while group B got buffered creatine. What they found by large is that, yes, both groups of participants saw an improvement in their overall strength and power, with actually no difference between the groups when it came to which one performed better. There was no difference in terms of effectiveness. Both groups performed equally well.

Then there was another study published by the Strength and Conditioning Journal that also found similar results. In this case, they took a look at Chelated Creatine vs Creatine Monohydrate, which yielded no conclusive favorite between the two. At the end of the day, both tested groups found that they ended up having an almost identical amount of more strength and more power. Creatine is creatine, plain and simple.

Esterified Creatine / Creatine Ethyl Ester

CEE or Creatine Ethyl Ester is an esterified form of creatine, which is basically creatine monohydrate with an ester attached to it. Esters are something that make, whatever they are attached to, more fat-soluble. You see, creatine is hydrophilic, which means that it primarily likes to bind to and with water. However, it is also semi lipophilic, which means that it can also bind to fats, although it’s not very efficient at it. So the whole idea behind creatine ethyl ester is actually quite sensible in terms that it helps improve creatine absorbability, where it gets absorbed not only through water but also through fats as well.

Well, Baylor University study tested this bio-availability claim, where they took an ethyl ester group, a creatine monohydrate group, and a placebo group, and ultimately found that while both monohydrate and ethyl ester groups experienced an increase in strength and power, it took freaking 20 days for the creatine ethyl ester to take effect, whereas monohydrate was effective after only 5-6 days, which is, you will agree, pretty darn amazing. However, in ethyl ester group they also found significant increases in what is known as creatinine – a useless byproduct of creatine that is actually quite toxic and can be damaging to our kidneys. I guess you don’t need me to tell you why creatine ethyl ester is a complete no-go in my book.

Liquefied Creatine

Even though these types of creatines are available out there (probably marketed with lazy people in mind, where someone figured that creatines already dissolved in water are a quicker way to get them in the system), creatine once it is suspended in water and stays like that for a prolonged amount of time loses its effectiveness, it breaks down fast, and is basically a money thrown away.

Creatine Hydrochloride / Creatine HCL

Creatine hydrochloride is one of the priciest creatines out there, and what it basically is it’s a creatine molecule combined with a hydrochloric acid. The reason behind its creation is simple. By adding an acid to it, the same type of acid that our stomach naturally creates, creatine becomes much more readily available for absorption, not having to go against the acidic environment because it already has an acid attached to it, which serves as a shield that allows it to pass our gut undamaged, therefore arriving more potent to our cells, where it is needed.

With many Creatine HCL producers claiming its superiority over other forms of creatine, where we find a large number of users backing up those claims, I as always have to rely on science in order to stand by what I myself claim, that Creatine hydrochloride is slightly superior dose-per-gram-wise than creatine monohydrate.

As opposed to monohydrate, which itself has countless studies done that confirm its positive performance-and-strength enhancing properties, as of now, there was only one official study done on Creatine HCL.

The study was conducted at the University Sao Hudas Tadeu, in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in 2015, and its goal was to compare the effects of creatine hydrochloride and creatine monohydrate on strength and body composition in weightlifters. What is interesting with this study is that it didn’t only pay attention to the strength increase, but also on how the ingestion and use of both of these forms of creatine affected the overall body muscle mass and composition.

The study concluded that while both creatine hydrochloride and creatine monohydrate improved strength and power output in tested individuals, only hydrochloride version induced changes in the muscular body composition. Now I have to be extremely careful here so you don’t come to the wrong conclusion. When we talk about body composition here, we don’t talk about lean muscle mass. While creatine monohydrate positively impacts the overall body hydration level (meaning that it causes some level of water retention) thus increasing the overall muscle mass, the HCL version changes in body composition are not caused primarily by water retention, but by lean muscle tissue, which was further related to the dosage that the tested subject used.

So yes, while other previously mentioned forms of creatine are all just an altered form of creatine monohydrate, which in itself, in its simplest form, is the overall best, safest and most researched creatine on the market, when it comes to creatine HCL, all the positive user experiences (my own included) and this one study that proves its slight superiority, I would have to give it the same slight advantage over monohydrate.

When people ask me, which one creatine form I suggest them to use, in order to help them build more strength and ultimately more muscle, I tell them that both creatine monohydrate and creatine HCL are great choices. The only serious difference between them is that of the price.

Of course, the next thing, except the price, that you should pay serious attention to, is the quality of the creatine that you’re buying. You have to keep in mind that different producers may claim whatever they want on their labels in order to increase sales since there is no one really to hold them accountable and their quality at check but themselves. My personal favorites, that are also proven to work exceptionally well, with no fillers and fluff, are ON Creatine Monohydrate, Signature Creatine Monohydrate, and BulkSupplements’ Creatine Monohydrate which is also the best bang for your buck.

As always, thank you for reading. And if you have any questions or any ideas for future articles, make sure you let me know in the comments section below.