Creatine monohydrate is a popular sports and exercise supplement used to enhance performance under high intensity conditions and help build lean muscle during training. It has been deemed safe and effective by the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) in their position stand, Safety and Efficacy of Creatine Supplementation in Exercise, Sport, and Medicine, and is used fairly ubiquitously throughout the realm of sports, including swimming, track & field, cycling, skiing, tennis, volleyball, lifting & bodybuilding, soccer, endurance & interval training, and combat. But can it help the dedicated hiker and backpacker in the pursuit of their sport and recreation?
Related: After your done reading this article, click this link to check out my top picks for creatine supplements that can be found on Amazon.
Reasons Why Creatine Can Help Hikers and Backpackers
Hiking and Backpacking is and Endurance Exercise
As I’ve previously discussed in my protein requirements for hiking article, hiking is a form of endurance exercise. Your cardiovascular system responds to it by increasing your breathing and heart rate, and eventually builds endurance to the physical pressures of the sport, such that you’re able to experience better, or longer performance of those tasks inside of it, before fatigue sets in, over time.
Because multiple studies support the use of creatine for other endurance and interval type exercises, and sports, it would not be novel to extrapolate this positive effect further onto other exercise tasks that involve similar isotonic contractions of the leg muscles. Again, one can read through the reference studies used by the ISSN to support their position stand, and find both theoristic biochemical, and more importantly, empirically driven practical evidence, that creatine ubiquitously enhances performance over an array sports and exercise.
Hiking and Backpacking Has a Resistance Component To It
Not only is vigorously walking up a mountain an endurance exercise, but lunging up a steep section of the mountain, with a 25 to 40 pound pack on your hips and back, is a type of resistance training. It’s easy, especially at altitude, to work your legs to significant fatigue, when trekking up a high grade area of the trail. I remember a story from Steven, of the My Life Outdoors Youtube channel, where he recalls pushing himself up the mountain by taking 50 steps, resting, then 50 more steps, then resting again, and so on, just as a way to work around this fatigue. And you are literally performing small lunges with every step up or down the mountain, or every carved out step, or knee-tall rock you come across.
Thru-hikers especially know that they have to get out there, and build strength in their leg muscles by training with a full pack, weeks to months before their real hike begins. But even day hiking challenging trails can cause a significant breakdown and fatigue of leg muscle, that needs to be repleted through diet and supplementation of essential amino acids.
Creatine Can Augment Muscle Recovery After a Hike
Creatine can facilitate, to a greater degree, glycogen repletion after a particularly hard trail, that overworks the muscles to the point of resistance training type damage. Creatine also reduces the amount of inflammatory markers (creatinine kinase, tissue necrosis factor alpha, C-reactive protein, prostaglandin E2, and lactic dehydrogenase) in the blood after strenuous endurance exercise, and thus cuts down on post hiking soreness.
The supplement further has helped athletes during the start of high volume resistance training; they are able to tolerate this shock to their system better. It therefore wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say it should help those thru-hiking trainers that are getting a late start on their training, and have to push themselves to get up to speed.
Creatine Can Play a Roll in Minimizing Muscle Injury
In sports related studies, creatine reduced the incidences of muscle craps, strains, pulls, heat stroke, and dehydration, and further reduced total injuries for athletes being supplemented. This again could be valuable to the thru-hiker, where a significant injury could mean ending a trip and being airlifted out, or being stuck tens of miles from civilization, trying to recover, while supplies wear thin. And certainly if the day hiker can avoid injuries as well, so much the better.
Creatine Can Increase the Hiker’s Tolerance To the Heat
Because creatine chemically can attract water, and cause a short term fluid retention effect after supplement loading, it has been shown to improve heat tolerance, and reduce dehydration and heat stroke, among those using a 7 day loading dosage, prior to the exercise event performed in the heat. Once study has shown it to reduce sweat rate, which can factor in to electrolyte and micronutrient losses for the heat naive thru-hiker, experiencing a sudden high ambient temperature environment.
Creatine Can Be Cardioprotective
There is a small amount of low level evidence, that adding creatine to solutions meant to stop the heart during surgery, may reduce ischemia and ischemia associated heart arrhythmias. Though more evidence is needed, creatine loading may help older hikers (or rather, older folks in general, or those with heart disease) protect their hearts, with regard to artery blockage related heart attacks.
Creatine Can Help the Older Hiker Increase Their Strength and Endurance on the Trail
Multiple studies and meta analysis show creatine alone or with protein supplementation increases muscle mass, strength and function among older adults participating in resistance training. Studies also show a reduction in bone mass loss in this cohort. Creatine could keep you out on the trail longer and later if you’re a senior hiker. In addition to this benefit, older adults using creatine have had the following positive end points:
- lower cholesterol and triglycerides
- reduced fatty liver
- better glycemic control and lower HbA1c
- improved functionality with knee related osteoarthritis
- slower tumor growth of certain malignencies
- improved mood
How And When Should the Hiker or Backpacker Take Creatine?
Loading for Thru-Hiking
Optimally you want to get through the creatine loading phase before you begin your thru-hike training, and after this you would start the maintenance phase, up to the start day of your thru-hike, and then continuing during such, if possible.
If it’s not possible to take the creatine maintenance doses with you on the trail, then at week 4 to 6 of your hike, you would load again. Then just keep that intermittent loading going every subsequent 4-6 weeks you are hiking, by way of your normal mailed supplies to resupply areas.
However it might be in your best interest to consider bringing a maintenance dose with you from a weight and logistical stand point, as well as a health related one. The weight of the loading dose you’d complete every 4 to 6 weeks is 100 to 140 grams, while the weight of one month’s supply of maintenance doses is 90 to 150 grams. Not much difference. Plus the maintenance dose requires only a once per day dosing; something that can be done at camp at breakfast, versus the loading dose that requires 4 doses evenly spaced throughout the day, because the body can only absorb so much of the supplement for a given feeding.
| Dose | Instructions | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Loading Dose | 0.3g/kg/day split into four doses per day, or 5g four times a day, for 5-7 days | 100 to 140g |
| Maintenance Dose | 3 to 5g per day | 90 to 150g per 30 days |
Loading For Day Hiking
Day hikers have two options to saturate their muscles with creatine: 1) Follow the Thru-hiking loading and maintenance schedule, which is 0.3g/kg/day split into four doses per day, or 5g four times daily for 5-7 days, then 3-5g per day thereafter; or 2) Use a lower intensity loading by just starting with 3 to 5 grams per day for 28 days to achieve saturation, and continuing with that same dose for maintenance. The latter method will take longer to reach muscle saturation of creatine, but is easier to perform as it doesn’t require the burden of 4 doses per day. There is however less evidence supporting this particular method of loading.
Creatine Supplementation Use Before or After Hiking
Because ingestion of creatine alongside carbohydrates and protein before exercise/training does lead to better absorption and retention of glycogen in the muscles, and further, according to Cribb & Hayes, ingesting ideal amounts of creatine/protein/carbs immediately before or after resistance training leads to better results, it would make sense to time your ingestion of creatine (and carbs and protein) close to your hiking session. Carbohydrate timing too is important here, which I alluded to above, and which I’ll discuss on another article.
Ingesting creatine close to the beginning of your hike would make the most sense under more extreme conditions: a hike where you’re carrying a heavy pack up a steep trail, and/or in hot weather, where creatine’s osmotic effect can cause a higher degree of water retention, and reduce the risk of heat related illness. Read my article on sweat and electrolytes when hiking at higher temperatures, where I discuss hydration preparation before hiking in the section about calculating your sweat rate.
Use of Creatine with Protein and Carbohydrate Supplementation
A higher degree of muscle saturation occurs when creatine is combined with protein and carbohydrates when ingested, even among individuals with higher saturation levels. Thus it’s best to supplement alongside protein and carb supplementation, or high protein and carb meals, related to your hike. Again immediately before or after the hike is your best bet. I further talk about protein timing related to hiking in my article on protein requirements and supplementation.
Further Reading
Thanks for checking out my article on the roll of creatine for hiking!
Now check out my other articles on hiking nutrition on my hiking nutrition page.
References
Cribb PJ, Hayes A. Effects Of Supplement Timing And Resistance Exercise On Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2006;38(11):1918–25
International society of sports nutrition position stand: nutrient timing