Comment on PROTEIN BRO
Carnelian@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoI personally take it a step further and question whether the extra 25% is worth it at all.
Even creatine has its downsides, in that it’s a powder you have to pay for and remember to choke down every day. And in the end, all you get is the same progress you would have gotten anyway, just a bit faster.
For me, who cares if what took you 5 years could have been done in 4 if everything was “optimal”? Why are we so obsessed with “optimizing” everything, when in reality this mindset just results in 90% of people giving up?
*I should add I have no critique of someone who wants for themselves every possible advantage, or educates others about it. But presenting these things as being synonymous with the gym is a huge public disservice. It would be like aggressively trying to funnel every single person who wants to buy a car into becoming an F1 driver
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
unless you’re struggling to buy food i would say creatine is 100% worth it, it’s not that expensive really and you can just mix a teaspoon into your morning drink.
And for that little effort and expense you get a free ~10% increase in strength so long as you keep consuming it, which lets you train more faster, resulting in permanent gains.
like it’s not obligatory or anything, but it’s a great way to help yourself get into fitness, just makes it slightly easier. Really the big benefit of it can be said to simply be that it makes you more likely to keep going.
Carnelian@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We can discuss the merits of specific supplements all day, but I find this mindset paradoxically results in worse progress for most people
Delphia@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Creatine is LITERALLY the only supplement that almost everyone and every study agrees
Anything else the answer to “Should I take…” is at best “It depends” and in most cases “No”
Carnelian@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Sure, if you want to know earnestly some reasons why not.
For starters, it is literally completely unnecessary.
Beyond that, it perpetuates the broader harmful falsehood that lifters need a cabinet of supplements, thereby turning many people away from the gym who are repulsed by the idea.
The above falsehood has personally annoyed me many times. I am visibly very muscular, and have had friends, family, and even strangers warn me, unprompted, about the dangers of supplements lol. I gather there was a news story about lead in protein powder that went viral, and everyone assumes I must be taking all the powders, probably because of how cavalier gym folk are about insisting everyone hop on all the powders
It has a gross sandy texture, upsets people’s stomaches (especially if they try the “creatine loading” phase which is so popularly suggested), and interferes with their sleep (if the countless anecdotes are to be believed).
It does have potential serious side effects in some populations that don’t get talked about often. People with bipolar disorder shouldn’t risk taking it, neither should people with kidney disease.
If you are healthy and ever get bloodwork done, you need to remember to explain to your doctor that you supplement creatine beforehand, otherwise they may think you have kidney disease.
Five grams per day of creatine monohydrate dissolved in a glass of water is cheap. Creatine pills are not. Creatine gummy bears are not. Creatine in preworkout (yet another constantly shilled powder) is not. The massive list of non-monohydrate creatine products are neither cheap nor effective lol. When we say “definitely everyone should hop on creatine!”, a good percentage of people will end up going down one of those paths.
And to top it all off, the beneficial effects for muscle building are dramatically overstated. People talk about it like it creates some cascading compound interest effect you can’t afford to miss out on, when in actual reality, everyone who has been around the block knows you reach the point of diminishing returns very quickly when you are consistent in the gym lol. If you put 5 hard years in without it, there isn’t a soul on earth who could pick you apart in a lineup of creatine users.
Now your response to all this may be “none of this is really that big deal!” and you know what? I agree. I frequently cite creatine as being one of the big three non-scam supplements (protein, caffeine, creatine). They have a real effect, unlike virtually all other gym products. My issue, to put it most broadly, is with the attitude we perpetuate regarding supplementation in general. That it’s so thoroughly and totally taken for granted that every single person should want to pay for and incorporate every single advantage.
That we frame it as being “an advantage” at all, as if the simple love of training is not in and of itself a great joy which transforms the lives of everyone it reaches. No no, instead, as is typical of all “worthy” pursuits, it is an investment to be capitalized upon. Faster is always better, bigger is always better. Do not allow yourself to be captivated by the scenery flying by, if for a moment it distracts you from shoveling ever more coal into the furnace of this godforsaken train everyone insists our life must become.
ahem. Well, apologies for going off the rails a bit there. That’s been stewing in me for a long time. I also don’t take protein powder lmao