I've been reading about creatine's ability to increase strength and stamina in muscle building.  Not just the selling sites, but also on quackwatch, which I respect as a puveyor of unbiased opinion.  There is some evidence that it can be helpful to women engaged in strength training.

Question:  Does anyone here take it?  If so, have you had any side-effects?  Suze

A few years ago, I started with creatine because I was doing bodybuilding-type exercises in the gym (my goal was to increase strength and muscle mass), using weights that I could eke out 8-12 reps per set with.  At the time, I did quite a bit of reading online about creatine, and from what I understood (and I haven't done any recent research on it, so I don't know what, if anything, has changed with this supplement), creatine does help with short-term, explosive movements like strength training and bodybuilding.  The most common form of creatine is creatine monohydrate, which, unfortunately, is poorly absorbed, and can cause bloating.  And you need quite a large dosage to get any into your muscle tissues.

Then I learned that, supposedly, a better form of creatine is creatine ethyl ester hcl (CEE).  Better absorbtion by the muscles, without the bloating effects of regular creatine.  And less is needed to get the same strength-enhancing effects.  I took CEE for a while, and it did seem to help me power out a rep or two more per set, than I could previously.  How much of that was psychological and how much was real strength enhancement, I'm not sure.

Take a look at this page about CEE on bodybuilding.com - it gives you the basics:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/cee.html

Good online store, btw.  I've had mostly good service from them.

Doug

if you guys want to have more fun whilst boosting creatine levels - simply eat more red meat. if you do a bit of research you'll find that some meats have high free creatine protein levels in them - equivalent to some supplements

i'd always consume food over a tablet no matter what it is - fresh is better  - period.

plus the meat will give you all the other proteins in-balance

just another thought - you're body is clever and so unless you want to be tied to takin creatine and making big pharma companies rich - id think about just consuming more red meat - it tastes way better methinks anyway