Never use Creatine to work out lol, all it does is pumps unwanted masses of water into your muscles from what I understand. Who knows what other problems you could end up with later on down the road. I've always known to stay away from that stuff, due to the fact that I like being somewhat skinny, as I feel a lot more maneuverable as a light weight when it comes to sports and that sort, but in terms of the health risks involved I'd love to hear otherwise.
It depends on the type of creatine and by that in wich form. Creatine monohydrate does what you are saying. That is becouse it binds a lot of water in the body due to it's low solubility in water. However there are other forms of creatine that don't bind water. There is also some people that don't have positive effects of creatine (s.k. non responders) however this is usually only to the monohydrate form.
I have used both creatine monohydrate and other forms. They had no effect at all on my T.
Creatine is a naturally occuring molecule that is produced in the liver and can be found in meat since it is generally is used a mean to store energy in the cells, primarly muscles (about 95% of all creatine in our bodies can be found in sceletal muscles). The name comes from the greek work for muscle (kreas).
It is accually used as an energy reserve in the cells and is usually stored in the muscles in the form of phosphocreatine wich is used to resupply the cell with ATP after it has been used up.
When a cell uses energy in f.i. a muscle contraction a bond to one of the phosphate groups in ATP (adenosine triphosphate, contains 3 phosphate groups) is broken wich results in ADP (adenosine diphosphate, contains 2 phosphate groups) and a free phosphate group + energy (around 34 joule per molecule). Creatine works by helping to revert ADP back to ATP by realising it's phosphate (reaction is catalized by an enzyme caled creatine kinase) which releases energy so that ADP can be reverted back to ATP by recreating the bond to the phosphate group. In other words it's not used as a direct energy source since ATP is the molecule of choice as a source of energy in our cells, but as a reserve that can be used to quickly restore levels of ATP in the cell.
Our cells usually resupply the levels of ATP by metabolizing sugar. However, that is a process that takes a lot longer.
Normally a cell in our body can store 2-5 mM of ATP which in a muscle contraction is used up in a matter of a few seconds. However creatine can be stored in the amounts of 25-30 mM per cell (around 5-10 times as much) and the energy levels can thus be restored quickly.
This is why when using creatine supplements you will notice that you can do a few more reps when working out and that the time of recovery after a work-out is shorter. So it will make it possible for you to work-out harder and more often wich will in turn result in higher strength/better preformance. It will not by a miracle make you stronger right away (apart from being able to do those couple of reps more at same weights that you used to work out with).
Another bonus is that even after a hard work-out you will seldom feel soreness or fatigue in your muscles in the same way as before.
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