When the International Olympic Committee published a consensus statement on dietary supplements in 2018, it identified a grand total of four substances whose performance-boosting effects were backed by a reasonable body of evidence. Three of those substances are very familiar to endurance athletes: caffeine, nitrate (as found in beet juice), and baking soda (possibly along with beta alanine, which does roughly the same thing).
The fourth one, which is far better known to sprint and power athletes, is creatine. There’s ample evidence that creatine can help build strength and power, primarily by boosting your performance in the gym. Over time, squeezing out an extra rep or two in every set of every workout can lead to substantial gains. Could it be useful for endurance athletes too? Researchers have been considering this idea since at least the early 1990s, with at best mixed results. But a new review in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition argues that it’s time for the endurance world to take another look at creatine.
We normally think of two energy systems: aerobic and anaerobic. While this…
