Strength Increases By 30% In 30 Days For Creatine Newbie

Content Executive10 months ago

Creatine is probably the most talked about supplement there is, outside of protein of course. With heaps of scientific research backing it up as one of the most effective things you can take to improve your performance, there’s no wonder it’s so popular with so many people.

To prove its credentials, Matt Morsia (@mattdoesfitness) enlisted his wife, Sarah, to take creatine for a month. A complete newbie, she was the perfect candidate for the test. Here’s what happened when she took creatine every day for a month.

Alongside a muscle-building training plan put together by Matt, Sarah committed to taking 5g of creatine every day for 30 days to see the impact on her strength and her physique.

First up, the “before” session. Sarah completed her one-rep max — the heaviest weight she could lift for one complete rep — for squat, bench press, and deadlift.

Day 1

	Day 1
Squat 1RM	62.5kg
Bench press 1RM	40kg
Deadlift 1RM	80kg

One problem Sarah encountered on the take-creatine-once-a-day challenge was remembering to take creatine once a day. Come on, Sarah, you had one job. Despite her forgetfulness, she was beginning to feel and see the effects after just one week.

Note: we don’t recommend dry scooping creatine. It’s much safer, and tastier, to mix creatine with water, or blend it into your favourite smoothie.

As the month went on, so did Sarah’s progress, which showed no sign of stalling. She was basically hitting a new one-rep max almost every training session. She had also gained body weight, something expected during initial creatine supplementation as it can make you hold water.

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A few days ahead of the final check-in, Sarah took some well-earned days off to allow her muscles time to rest.

Day 30

	Day 1	Day 30
Squat 1RM	62.5kg	80kg
Bench press 1RM	40kg	50kg
Deadlift 1RM	80kg	110kg
Total weight lifted	182.5kg	240kg

I think we can all agree that the final results are pretty damn impressive. Overall, Sarah’s lifts increased by 57.5kg, which is a huge 31.5% increase.

Her weight change levelled out at a 1.5kg increase, thought to be evenly distributed water weight as her physique didn’t change too noticeably.

Take Home Message

And all of that in just 30 days. We can only imagine the possible gains over a longer time with the same level of consistency. Watch this space, Sarah will be overtaking Matt soon with her immense strength … as long as she remembers to take her creatine every day.

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Emily Wilcock

Content Executive

After completing an internship with Myprotein, Emily returned to university to finish her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and Marketing. With experience in lifestyle writing, Emily aims to entertain and educate through her work. Her focuses include recipes, real and inspiring stories, and working with writers to help provide easy-to-digest evidence-based research. Her work on recipes has been previously featured in The Supplement magazine, with a particular focus on high-protein, nutritious meals, plus advice on how to properly fuel your body. Outside of work, Emily’s top priority is food. She’s a self-professed star baker and a connoisseur of all things baked. In her spare time, she’s either cooking up a storm, our looking out for the opportunity to try out Manchester’s newest restaurants. But as a huge fan of carbs, if it’s not pasta or pasta-adjacent, she’s not interested. If she’s not in the kitchen, she’s tucked up with a book for an early night, or you’ll find her in the gym working up a sweat. Afterall, all those carbs require quite the appetite.