A desire to increase strength, muscle mass and athletic performance often drives those who take creatine supplements. Hitting those goals more quickly fuels the concept of “creatine loading.”

This shortcut calls for consuming higher amounts of creatine for five to seven days when you start taking the supplement. The overload phase is designed to saturate muscles with energy for eventual workout gains.

It’s a common tactic used to jumpstart a strength-building push — but it’s also a plan that draws plenty of questions given how much it exceeds standard dosage recommendations.

So, is creatine loading safe? Let’s check with exercise physiologist Chris Dempers, ACSM EP-C.

What is a creatine loading phase?

Creatine is a compound made from amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Your body uses it to boost levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). These energy-carrying molecules fuel muscles on a cellular level.

As you might imagine, fitness-focused folks interested in building strength might want MORE creatine in their system to power workouts. It’s often why they take creatine supplements.

As you start creatine supplementation, a loading phase allows your body to take in extra amounts of the compound to build an energy inventory. Essentially, you’re creating a power supply ready to be tapped.

“The more creatine you have in your system, the more ATP you can make to maximize your workouts,” explains Dempers. “Loading gets your body as much creatine as it can hold in a short amount of time.”

How to load creatine

The window of opportunity for creatine loading comes when you begin taking the supplement to raise creatine levels. “It allows you to make some big gains quickly,” says Dempers.

A loading phase typically lasts five to seven days. Daily creatine dosage during this time typically ranges from 20 grams to 25 grams. (For perspective, the non-loading dosage is usually 3 to 5 grams per day.)

It’s important to divide your loading dosage into multiple servings spread throughout the day. That way, it’s a little less dumped into your system all at once, which can minimize potential issues. (More on that in a moment.)

Once you reach a creatine saturation point, taking the recommended daily supplement amount (3 to 5 grams) is usually enough to help maintain higher creatine levels as you work toward strength-building goals.

Dempers recommends checking the label of your chosen creatine supplement for guidance on loading. “Go by their instructions, which have been put through the paces,” he says.

Is creatine loading safe?

Creatine loading can be done safely and effectively — but that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for everyone. “It can be safe for the right individual,” says Dempers, “but it can come with side effects.”

Higher amounts of creatine may cause:

• Diarrhea.
• Dizziness.
• Elevated blood pressure.
• Muscle cramps.
• Upset stomach.
• Weight gain.

A few case reports suggest that consuming higher amounts of creatine may put added stress on your kidneys, which process (or metabolize) creatine in your body. But various clinical trials show limited risk or reason for worry.

Still, it’s best to take precautions. “Talk to your doctor or healthcare provider before starting on creatine to go over any potential health issues or concerns,” advises Dempers.

Is creatine loading necessary?

While creatine loading is an option, it’s not necessary to reach that creatine saturation point to push strength gains. Taking the smaller recommended supplement dose will get you there, too. It just takes longer.

“Loading gives you an immediate spike, but then you level off,” explains Dempers. “You’ll eventually catch up if you’re taking the smaller daily dose.”

A slow-and-steady method also limits the risk of the previously mentioned side effects.

Can you work out during the loading phase?

Stick to your normal strength-training routine during a loading cycle as you start taking creatine. “Stay consistent with what you’re doing — and that includes the weight you’re lifting during your sets,” Dempers advises.

Strength gains from creatine won’t come instantly, after all. You’re not going to see a massive uptick in your bench press or squat max within the five- to seven-day loading period. It’ll take a few weeks.

So, avoid the temptation to start adding plates to the weight bar just because you’re loading.

“Anytime you try to do things too fast, you run the risk of injuries,” he adds. “Studies show that creatine can help muscles get stronger, but it still takes time. Your body will tell you when it’s ready.”

Final thoughts on creatine loading

Research shows the potential benefits of taking creatine supplements, especially for athletes. “Creatine is a performance substance,” states Dempers. “It might be able to give you an extra edge or push to get to another level.”

But that goal can be reached with or without loading.

Can a pill really mimic all the beneficial effects of exercise? You’d think so from some of the stories about substances that “could make going to the gym unnecessary”. There was another rash of these a few weeks ago, when researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark announced that a drug called LaKe “brings the body into a metabolic state corresponding to running 10km at high speed on an empty stomach”. But what’s going on here? Even if a pill can replicate parts of what exercise does for us, how useful is that, really?

First things first: the most commonly accepted term for drugs like LaKe is “mimetics”, because what they do, as a rule, is mimic the biological effects of working out without the need to actually break a sweat. The idea has been around for a while: in 2008, San Diego’s Salk Institute introduced the world to a drug called GW501516 (516 for short), which signals key genes to burn fat instead of sugar, helping rodent test subjects run for longer without hitting the proverbial wall.

In later tests, a pair of rodents nicknamed Couch Potato Mouse and Lance Armstrong Mouse, both reared on the same diet of fatty, sugary pellets, did the same amount of daily physical activity, but Lance Armstrong Mouse was dosed with 516 – and markedly increased its endurance, while staying much leaner than its control counterpart. A variant of 516 quickly ended up on the black market as a banned doping agent known as Endurabol, and the World Anti-Doping Agency issued warnings to athletes that it was unsafe – but plenty more mimetics were already in development.

Compound 14, first announced in 2015, started development as a way to treat other diseases, before researchers discovered that it could reduce fasting blood glucose levels, improve glucose tolerance and promote weight loss in obese mice. Since then, we’ve also seen research on Lac-Phe, a chemical usually produced in the body through resistance training, and a new molecule known as SLU-PP-332, which boosts metabolism and endurance, helping rodents run 50% further than they previously could. The latter, its lead researcher says, tells skeletal muscle to make the changes typically provoked by endurance training. That has the potential to help dieters maintain muscle mass during weight loss, or older people avoid sarcopenia as their bodies respond less strongly to exercise.

LaKe is still in the rat-study stage of development, so it’s not certain that the results will transfer over to humans. But what it seems to do is first prompt a quick surge of lactate in the body – mimicking the sort of effect you’d typically see after a bout of high-intensity exercise – and then a more gradual increase of a chemical called beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB). BHB is a ketone, or a chemical synthesised in the liver from fatty acids to provide the body with energy when it doesn’t have enough glucose – which is where the notion of “running on an empty stomach” comes from.

Between them, these two changes do seem to lower the level of free fatty acids in the bloodstream and also suppress appetite – which are effects you’d expect from fasted exercise (working out without eating beforehand), and could help to reduce the risk of conditions such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes over the long term. And (again, in rats) the pill seems to show no signs of toxicity – unlike early versions of 516, which promoted rapid cancer cell growth in their rodent test subjects. Promising stuff, then – but is it really that simple?

Well, it’s tough to say. Exercise affects almost all of the body’s systems, in often intricate ways that we’re a long way from understanding (the largest research programme dedicated to comprehending its impact at the molecular level, using almost 2,600 volunteers, is still ongoing). Together, many of the drugs mentioned above might be able to mimic any number of these – perhaps working in conjunction with already government-approved interventions like Ozempic to encourage a host of benefits. But any supplement has limitations: exercise is a full-body experience, with downstream effects that include everything from improved bone density to better sleep. It enhances mood and self-esteem while decreasing stress, and it seems to have qualities that protect against dementia. All of these impacts come from complex interactions between any number of biological effects – but even if science could mimic them all with pills, it would be much tougher to recreate the psychological advantages of running a 5k with friends, or hitting a new personal best in the squat.

We’re still a fairly long way from finding safe drugs that can replicate exercise’s most beneficial effects in humans, but when they exist, they’ll probably be most useful for people who are elderly, ill, infirm, or otherwise unable to do the real thing. They might help people recovering from surgery – or astronauts who, even if they work out while in orbit, suffer bone loss and muscle wastage because their bodies work less hard in microgravity. For the rest of us, the benefits of a gentle walk or a handful of squats are tough to mimic with pills, and (reasonably) easy to get without them. One day, perhaps we’ll be able to take our exercise in pill form – but right now, it’s much easier to hit the road.