Creatine supplementation and women athletes

Abstract

The effect of oral creatine (Cr) supplementation on performance has received a considerable amount of attention in recent years, and has been shown to be effective for enhancing both aerobic and anaerobic exercise performance. The majority of Cr research has used men as subjects; therefore, findings reported for men may not necessarily be generalized to women, and there has been some controversy regarding the effectiveness of Cr supplementation for improving high intensity exercise performance in women. For example, Forsberg et al. (1) reported that women have an approx 10% higher total muscle-Cr (TCr) content compared with men, suggesting that they may have a lower potential to Cr load and, therefore, may not experience improvements in performance similar to those observed for men. However, more recently, a number of studies have reported that there are no gender differences in the magnitude of change in phosphocreatine (PCr) and/or TCr content following Cr loading (2,3), and that short-term supplementation is equally effective between genders for increasing indices of high intensity exercise performance (4). The purpose of this chapter was to examine the morphological potential for women to respond to Cr supplementation, and its effects on exercise performance and body composition. Based on the findings, practical applications and recommendations for future study are discussed. © 2008 Humana Press.