Cycling creatine: Is there a basis for it?
Unlike some bosses, your muscle fibers dont have an open door policy. Not when it comes to nutrients, anyway. That is, creatine cant just come and go as it pleases. Theres a lot more creatine inside your muscle fibers (i.e., intracellularly) than outside (i.e., extracellularly). Thus, if anything, the tendency is for creatine to exit the muscle fiber rather than enter it. Transporting creatine inside therefore requires work. The work of transporting creatine into your muscle fibers is performed by at least one type of transporter, which is actually a protein. For our purposes, you can think of this protein transporter as a gateway that spans the membrane that encloses the muscle fiber. Many such gateways are distributed throughout the muscle fiber membrane, providing numerous possible sites for creatine uptake. Work requires energy. The energy used in transporting creatine inside your muscle fibers ultimately comes from adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP can be broken down to release en
