Creatine divides opinion in sport. Some see creatine powder as a strength booster that is a must for every athlete. Others claim it damages the liver and kidneys. Media reports and blog posts keep repeating both views, which is why many athletes, including many footballers, find it hard to form a well-founded opinion on the topic.
Creatine is a substance produced by the body itself, mainly in the liver. It acts as a carrier of phosphate groups and plays a central role in the body's energy supply. It is stored in the muscles in the form of creatine phosphate. Creatine phosphate comes into play above all when short, high-intensity efforts are required. It can be accessed extremely quickly, but the stores are emptied after a few seconds of maximum effort and need 3–5 minutes to refill completely. This is the crux of the matter: the idea behind supplementing with creatine monohydrate is that better-filled creatine stores keep this fast energy system available a little longer during short, intense efforts before the body has to fall back on its glycogen stores.
So what does creatine do for you as a footballer?
Football is primarily an endurance sport, but the game is packed with short, high-intensity intervals: sprints, jumps, physical duels, dribbles and shots on goal. During these actions the body repeatedly draws on its creatine phosphate stores for energy. But what does the research say?
Most of the notable studies that have looked at creatine use in footballers report positive effects of creatine monohydrate on various performance parameters. For example, Ostojic 2004 conducted a study with 20 Yugoslavian youth players from the top league. He divided the 20 players into a placebo group and a CM (creatine monohydrate) group. Instead of the supplement, the placebo group took sugar pills that looked identical to the creatine pills of the intervention group. Before the intervention, i.e. before the creatine or sugar pills were given, he carried out the following tests with each player:
- SDT test – a "specific dribble test" (dribbling test)
- PT test – a "power test" (sprint test)
- VJ test – a "vertical jump test" (jump test)
- Shuttle run – an "endurance test" (endurance test)
The players then continued their weekly training as normal, with all players following exactly the same diet to keep confounding factors to a minimum. Seven days after the start of the intervention, re-tests were carried out, i.e. the tests were repeated one to one.
The placebo group got minimally worse in every test except the endurance test. The CM group, on the other hand, showed a significant improvement in the measured values in all tests except the endurance test. The average time in the dribbling test improved by around 3 seconds and the sprint test by an average of 0.5 seconds. In addition, the average jump height in the "vertical jump test" rose from 49.2 cm to 55.1 cm, an increase of 5.9 cm. Compared with the placebo group, the creatine group achieved significantly better values in all tests except the endurance test.
What stands out in this study is the very high dose of 30 grams per day. It was chosen because the intervention period was very short. The review by Juan Mielgo-Ayuso et al. 2019 also found significant performance improvements in football players after taking 20–30 g of creatine monohydrate over 7 days, followed by a 9-week intake of 3–5 g (these amounts come from the studies – for legal reasons, however, we only recommend a daily amount of 3 g). Other studies came to similar results.
The following graphic shows another example from the study by Aquiles Yáñez-Silva et al. At the top it shows the change in "peak power output", i.e. maximum power, in the placebo and creatine groups, and at the bottom the "mean power output", i.e. average power, in a cycle ergometer test. Both graphs show a significant improvement in the creatine group.
Image source: Yáñez-Silva et al. 2017
So the research speaks in favour of creatine. There is also an authorised health claim for creatine: Creatine increases physical performance in successive bursts of short-term, high-intensity exercise. The beneficial effect is obtained with a daily intake of 3 g of creatine; the claim applies to adults. But what about your health? Is creatine harmful to the body?
Studies to date have found no negative effects of creatine monohydrate at the doses examined in healthy people. This is shown, for example, by the very detailed review by Andrew Shao et al. 2006. If you have health questions or pre-existing conditions, talk to your doctor before taking it.
One last question remains: can you get enough creatine from food? Creatine is found mainly in meat and fish, but only in small amounts. To get 3 g, you would have to eat around 700 g of meat or fish every day. So with a normal diet you usually will not reach this amount.
From what age does creatine make sense?
A rigid "only from 18" is now considered outdated. From around the age of 14, creatine can be an option if training, sleep and nutrition are on point – check briefly with your paediatrician first. Younger players only under medical supervision. And at any age: food first. Creatine does not replace a good diet – it complements it. More in our guide Creatine for teenagers: when does it make sense?
Our conclusion: if training, sleep and nutrition are on point (for teenagers after a quick check with the paediatrician), a daily intake of 3 g of creatine monohydrate can be a useful addition to your training – especially because football is shaped by short, intense actions. True to our motto: Level up your game
Referenced sources on creatine in football:
- Aquiles Yáñez-Silva, Cosme F. Buzzachera, Ivan Da C. Piçarro, Renata S. B. Januario, Luis H. B. Ferreira, Steven R. McAnulty, Alan C. Utter and Tacito P. Souza-Junior. Effect of low dose, short-term creatine supplementation on muscle power output in elite youth soccer players. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2017
- Juan Mielgo-Ayuso, Julio Calleja-Gonzalez, Diego Marqués-Jiménez, Alberto Caballero-García, Alfredo Córdova and Diego Fernández-Lázaro. Effects of Creatine Supplementation on Athletic Performance in Soccer Players: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis 2019
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Sergej M. Ostojic. Creatine Supplementation in Young Soccer Players
International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism 2004
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P Cancela,C Ohanian,E Cuitino,A C Hackney. Creatine supplementation does not affect clinical health markers in football players, Br J Sports Med 2007
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Andrew Shao, John N. Hathcock. Risk assessment for creatine monohydrate, Council for Responsible Nutrition, 1828 L St., Washington DC, 2006