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If a creatine supplement is taken for a sufficient amount of time (days/weeks) before exercise so that the body's skeletal muscle is saturated, then it could be said that creatine supplementation may reduce DOMS, correct?

This has probably been asked somewhere, but I don't recall seeing it.

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i've always read that it helps with recovery...just a generic statement though.

it would be hard to find out...as in...do a workout without being creatine saturated.....notice the doms...write them down.

and then remember exactly how you feel for later...when you do the same workout with creatine saturation...with same diet...same rest...yada yada yada yada..as before....and record how you feel.


better recovery could be attributed to many other things...

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I'm not quite sure how it would help with recovery unless it prevents catabolism from the byproducts of ATP synthesis (from other pathways) that would otherwise be more prolific. I'll have to look into that also because I've heard the same thing mentioned before. I'm sure someone (or many people) has done a study somewhere on whether it aids with recovery.

I would not call creatine a recovery aid. I'm also not sure that I would say it reduces DOMS. Although DOMS is a pretty specific-to-the-person phenom. What I would consider mild soreness might be experienced very differently by someone else. Anytime you are asking people to rate the perception of "pain" I would say that you get a very unreliable and mixed bag of responses. I would also say that DOMS are not an "if A then B" scenario. There are more factors than just weight lifted that contribute to DOMS, and thus trying to say that creatine reduces them would be... a complete guess at best. Who knows why DOMS are better or worse on different days.

If the body is able to produce more ATP from the ATP-PCr system, then there shouldn't be as much anaerobic glycolysis going on, right? I think it's for this reason that DOMS wouldn't be as bad, all other things held constant.

I agree

It is specific to the person, but because everyone has the same basic physiology, everyone can experience it.

Why not? It will happen repeatedly under the same conditions.

I agree with the first part, but everything happens for a reason. Rest, conditioning, diet, etc would all factor in. I'm just saying that it's one aspect.

I need to go find the damn Creatine FAQ thread.

What "same condition" state will you get DOMS? I'm talking each and every time. Thinking back on my entire body of lifting experience I can not say that I can predict when I will have DOMS. there are simply too many factors at play. If I do the same workload, same exercises that gave me DOMS last week, they may not be as severe (or occur at all this week). If I do MORE work this week than last, I may have the same DOMS experience, or maybe it will be less... If I do less work, but I change what I am doing, I may get DOMS, may not.

The factors I see at play would be things like:
1. rest time. How much sleep or down time did I get?
2. Nutrition.
3. stress levels in my life (Cortisol et al, levels)
and probably many more. But even when I think about when I do get DOMS, I also can think about equal times where DOMS were not equal in magnitude or even present.

The human body is an interesting thing. While our physiology is equal, the factors impacting that small set of variables is almost infinite. Everything from oxygen to heavy metals has a way of altering that "simple" physiology. So while I agree that nobody eats glass and craps blueberries, the experience of the individual will vary greatly. For this reason one could easily say that "everyone is different" and that "We are all the same." Both are true and false to some degree. The real truth is that we all have some common starting ground, but to expect us to all end in the same place is like thinking you could blow all of the seeds off a dandelion and expect them to land in the same order they started in.

Because you're missing my point, I'll exaggerate the circumstances.

Hypothetical situation:
You take identical twins. Or clones. Whatever. They're both exactly the same, and both subjects are "average" in every sense of the word. Neither has weight trained. Ever. One loads creatine for a sufficient amount of time before the experiment so that his skeletal muscle is FULLY saturated with creatine. The other takes nothing. The twins/clones have had the EXACT same diet, same sleep, etc, etc. EVERYTHING IS THE SAME EXCEPT FOR THE CREATINE. Both do a single set of 10 squats A2G (or any amount that is sufficient to produce DOMS). Would one trainee have more DOMS than the other during the following day(s)? Yes or no.

... Honestly? I would say yes. But I've already established that I'm not familiar with any research or functionality of creatine that would lead me to believe that it would alter the onset of DOMS, or would speed the recovery from DOMS.

I can understand your original proposed scenario with ATP and anaerobic glycolysis... but my understanding of the energy produced through ATP is that you are talking a VERY minimal amount of energy, and essentially enough to get you started, but that it simply isn't an enduring energy source. So... in a system where you are exhausting ATP as fuel you are still talking about a matter of SECONDS difference in energy output (I will also say that I believe there was some research that pointed to creatine not being effective in highly trained athletes, but mroeso in untrained individuals). So if we are talking about twin one exhausting ATP with the addition of creatine in 12 seconds and twin two without creatine exhausting ATP energy in 10 seconds... no... no difference in DOMS, not one that they could detect at any rate. Consider too that the damage done to the muscles in both subjects will be equal, regardless of the energy source. DOMS is not a matter simply dictated by metabolism, and that is where I think the creatine as a means to reduce DOMS falls flat. Impact too low and factors contributing to DOMS that simply are not touched by creatine.

Interesting debate though.

Gotcha. That answered it exactly. The more I read about it after posting the question, the more I realized how insignificant it was in the grand scheme of things. People always come in to GNC & ask what they can do to prevent DOMS, so I thought that this might be a good recommendation. I normally tell people to just suck it up...the ones that look at me like I'm an asshole are talked into buying MuscleTech. I don't think there is a single great option.