The upcoming Sydney Summer Olympic Games to be held in October will surely raise the incentive of most athletes to prepare for their sports. They also raise concerns about the use of dietary supplements to boost athletic performance. Creatine is one supplement that captured international prominence in the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games when two Olympic champions may have benefitted from its use. The widespread use of creatine extends from professional athletes to hopeful teenage athletes without an understanding of the relevant research. This staggering amount indicates an enormous expectation of potential benefit and fulfills the common athletic belief that if a little is good, then more is better.
Creatine is a nonessential dietary component found in abundance in meat and fish.
The body also makes creatine by using other dietary components called amino acids. Creatine is transported into muscle and nerves where it is joined with phosphate to form phosphocreatine. Having extra phosphocreatine in muscle cells helps to boost performance in many aspects of sport including jumping, sprinting and repetitions of these actions and thus to enhance performance in sports requiring either short-term all out effort or repeated stop and go activities. Athletes involved in sports like football, soccer, sprinting in track and swimming, basketball, and hockey may hike performance from increasing muscle phosphocreatine content. Phosphocreatine also may help athletes to recover from repeated heavy training session like pre-season training camps.