In the fitness world, creatine is one of the most popular supplements. Active individuals use it to improve their training experience.
All experience levels and genders can use this natural supplement. Creatine supplementation can speed up recovery, increase energy levels, and maintain lean muscle mass. For women starting out on their fitness journey, take advantage of these science-backed benefits to positively impact your training results.

What is Creatine?
Creatine is a natural compound that is synthesized by the human body. It is found in animal-based products like poultry, beef, and venison. Creatine is composed of three amino acids: arginine, glycine, and methionine.
While there are many forms of creatine, the most familiar and popular is creatine monohydrate.
Should a Beginner Take Creatine?
Creatine supplementation isn’t necessary for beginners because when a beginner first starts exercising, results are often immediately noticeable during the first phase of their fitness journey.
Due to neuromuscular adaptations, beginners display rapid adaptations to new training stimuli. The nervous system must adjust and learn to recruit muscle fibers during this initial adaptation period. As a result, beginners are typically more responsive to training stimuli, resulting in more immediate progress from exercise.
Due to this advantage, creatine supplementation isn’t usually recommended for beginners. Although it can still benefit beginners, it is generally recommended for intermediate to advanced lifters.
Creatine Benefits
Creatine supplementation has many benefits for women that can profoundly impact their health and fitness. From improving muscle growth to enhancing recovery, here are some benefits beginners can take advantage of.
Muscle Growth & Maintenance
Creatine can support body recomposition efforts, whether you’re trying to lose fat or gain lean muscle mass. Most popularly, women typically focus on losing weight or fat, while men focus on bulking by building muscle mass.
Entering a cutting phase, where exercise is combined with a caloric deficit, the aim is to maintain lean muscle mass and promote fat loss. Maintaining lean muscle mass is critical for supporting health in many ways, such as:
- Metabolism: People with higher lean body mass percentages burn more calories at rest than those who don’t. This is because your lean body mass percentage influences your resting energy expenditure (REE), the calories burned awake or at rest.
- Bone Health: Healthy bone density is needed for many reasons, including preventing disease and decreasing the risk of injury. When bones weaken, conditions like osteoporosis negatively affect quality of life. A healthy lean body mass effectively protects bone density from weakening, deterring these risks.
- Immune System: Protein reserves sourced from lean body mass help the body fight infection and inflammation. Lean body mass supports the immune system, protecting the body from diseases and other potential health risks.
Cutting phases help reduce body fat percentage. When approached correctly, lifters can achieve a leaner physique while maintaining skeletal muscle fibers and lean muscle mass. Comparatively, a bulking phase is where a lifter combines resistance exercise with a caloric surplus to produce muscle growth and strength gains.
Creatine supplementation can maintain and increase muscle mass, which benefits anyone wanting to preserve or grow lean muscle mass while in a cutting or bulking phase. Creatine stimulates muscle protein synthesis and helps reduce serum myostatin, which correlates with a negative regulation of muscle mass.
Recovery
How you recover can significantly impact the quality of your workouts, your motivation level, and your adherence to your workout program. Creatine can boost recovery and help reduce the time needed to recuperate between training sessions.
Although creatine is not considered the best recovery supplement, it can speed up healing, protect the body against muscle damage, and decrease oxidative stress. Creatine also increases glycogen synthesis, which benefits recovery by replenishing the muscle and stimulating muscle tissue repair.
Hydration
How hydrated your muscles are can impact your health, performance, and training progress. When the muscles are dehydrated, they become tight, more susceptible to fatigue, and prone to cramping.
Creatine is proactive in increasing total body water without negatively altering fluid distribution. The water aids bodily functions by improving circulation and cushioning the joints to support functional performance, deter cramping, and boost recovery.
Performance
The primary function of creatine is to stimulate the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy source for the body. Once creatine produces ATP, it stores the energy in muscle cells for later use, like walking or exercising.
Creatine’s natural function of producing energy makes it the perfect supplement option for positively impacting exercise and athletic performance. This can be especially helpful when lifters are in a caloric deficit, and energy levels naturally decrease because less food is consumed to be used as energy by the body. In a cutting phase, creatine supplementation can help lifters maintain energy and, as a byproduct, motivate them to stick to their fitness goals.
How to Take Creatine as a Beginner
How you take creatine can affect the quality of benefits you see from its supplementation. For example, whether it’s safe to mix creatine with protein powder. Use these tips on dosage and timing to determine the best way to integrate creatine into your fitness routine.
Dosage
The amount of creatine you take depends on several factors, including your activity level, muscle mass, and body weight.
A general recommendation for creatine dosage is 5-20g daily to produce ergogenic results and stimulate ATP resynthesis. For individuals who take more than 5g, splitting doses throughout the day is advised to replenish creatine stores and achieve desired results.
Timing
Current research does not provide sufficient evidence of the appropriate timing for creatine supplementation.
There are rational recommendations that can be taken into account when approaching creatine supplementation, though. For example, taking creatine pre-workout would be logical if you aim to enhance performance by boosting energy levels. Likewise, taking creatine post-workout would be ideal if your goal is to speed up recovery.
Final Thoughts
If you’re a beginner, taking creatine supplements isn’t a necessity. Integrating creatine into your routine is more beneficial after training hits a plateau or your experience level rises. At this point, your body has made the more significant neuromuscular adaptations, where progress comes quicker and more noticeably.
Taking creatine as a beginner is still possible if you wish to take advantage of its many associated health and fitness benefits.
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