Amino of the week; Creatine;

Typically creatine is not considered an amino acid by most who workout out and most are surprised to learn that creatine is made up of several amino acids, arginine, glycine and methionine. So technically it's an amino acid supplement, not an individual amino acid. Taking creatine before workouts helps keep your muscles saturated with creatine, producing the rapid energy your muscles need to perform rep after rep in the gym. It also makes muscles stronger by pulling more water into the muscle cells, which gives them a biomechanical advantage, helping you lift more weight or squeeze out an extra rep or two. For best results, take a dose of creatine after you work out. This will help to replenish your levels of creatine in the muscles and maximize growth.
I usually take a preworkout mixture of two grams of creatine and some "potion" of nitric oxide to rev up my muscles for the grueling workout ahead. Afterwards, i usually take another 3 to 5 grams of creatine malate or another form, due to the fact that i have a reaction to creatine monohydrate, for some unknown reason, it goes through my system post haste!
In a future entry i will show you what i take pre and post workout to give you a better picture of my supplement program and this will bring this whole series of amino of the week and the previous entry about the many different kinds of proteins, all together to enable you to set up your own pre and post workout supplementation program, to hopefully help you get the most from all of your training!