I get it too if I don't drink a lot more water. So did many people on my sports team.

Creatine binds to water (making less water available to your muscles) and allows your muscles to work harder (which makes them need more water). So if you're not drinking a lot more water when you're taking creatine, you will get cramps from either dehydration and/or muscle overuse.

But once you're past the loading phase for creatine and getting sufficient hydration, it's supposed to lessen cramps because the water bound to creatine also becomes available for use again as the creatine is used by the body.

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luke5441 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, of course I tried to drink more water. I also tried to ramp up the dose slower.

But the cramps are really debilitating, as in random back muscle locks up debilitating, so I thought it best to just give up on this.

	▲	kenhwang an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think dosing affects much, as long as you have excess creatine, the extra water requirements are determined by your muscle mass.

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kelseyfrog an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

How much water can 3g of creatine bind to? Is it like orbeez?

	▲	kenhwang an hour ago \| parent [-]
		My understanding is it's a bit of a bind and release process that moves the water from outside of the muscle cell to inside of it until the cell is saturated or the creatine is consumed. So the amount of creatine changes the rate as which water is loaded into the cell, but the total amount of water needed is calculated based on your muscle mass. The figures I've seen is 2L extra water (spread evenly, not all at once) for a normally recommended 5g daily creatine intake during loading (which typically takes a month at 5g/day dosage).