Creatine for Climbers: Game-Changer or Overhyped?

In this episode, Ollie Torr is joined by Aidan Roberts, Andy Cave, Maddy Cope, Tom Herbert, and Dr. Ed Gibson-Smith to explore one of the most debated supplements in climbing—creatine. Does it actually help climbers perform better, or is it just another fitness industry fad?

The panel breaks down the science and real-world applications of creatine, tackling common questions and misconceptions. Who benefits most? Does it improve power and endurance, or could it even hinder performance? How do diet and training style affect its effectiveness? And what about the infamous "flash pump"—is it a genuine concern or just gym bro nonsense?

Ollie even puts creatine to the test himself:
🗣 “Before this podcast, I was taking 5g of creatine every day… now I’m taking none. Here’s why.”

Key Takeaways:

• Power vs. Endurance: How creatine impacts different climbing styles.
• Recovery & Performance: Does it actually speed up recovery and help you send harder?
• Creatine & Weight Gain: Busting myths about ‘bulking up’ in climbing.
• Flash Pump Debate: Real concern or exaggerated worry?
• Diet & Absorption: Does your diet affect how well creatine works?

Join us for a science-backed discussion on whether creatine is a must-have for climbers or just extra weight in your pack.

👉 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen!

Edward Gibson-Smith's Data 👉  https://latticetraining.com/blog/creatine-podcast-supporting-visuals-by-dr-ed-gibson-smith/

The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.

Transcript

Ollie Torr (00:00)
Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're doing something a little different. No single guest, just a deep dive into one topic, creatine and climbing.

I've brought in line-up of expert guests to provide a holistic view on this topic. First, Ed Smith explains how creatine works in the body, including the pros and cons. At 20 minutes, Tom Herbert shares how he uses it with his clients, which includes Aidan Roberts, who we also hear from about how his approach has changed as a 9A boulder at around 30 minutes. At the one hour mark, Maddy Cope discusses creatine from a female athlete and coach's perspective, and at one hour 15, Andy Cave talks about using it for

timing longevity and performing as an older athlete. Plus, if you've ever wondered about creatine and flash pump, we cover that at 1 hour 45 before I wrap up with my own coaching insights. There are some slight differences in sound quality between the guests, but I can promise the content is well worth the listen. I hope you enjoy this deep dive. Let's get started with Ed Smith on how creatine actually works.

Edward Gibson-Smith (01:03)
so my name is Edward Gibson Smith and I'm currently a researcher at Sheffield Highland University, working in the School of Sport and Physical Activity. I work within the Physical Activity, Public Health and Wellbeing group, as well as completing my doctoral studies in nutritional considerations for climbing. I'm also a nutrition practitioner. So worked within the sport of climbing and worked with climbing athletes now for around kind of

eight years I guess and that followed on from doing my training in sports nutrition through the International Olympic Committee which is a postgraduate course

Ollie Torr (01:44)
and you're a keen climber yourself. Mostly boulder specialist?

Edward Gibson-Smith (01:46)
Yeah,

yeah, or exclusively pretty much.

Ollie Torr (01:50)
So a researcher, nutritionist, and still got a board in the garage, Sheffield climber.

Edward Gibson-Smith (01:55)
Yep.

Ollie Torr (01:57)
So just to get started, as someone with the most academic knowledge in this area, what is creatine? How does it actually work in the body?

Edward Gibson-Smith (02:08)
Yeah, so I hope to kind of deliver this not too much like a list to have actually written some notes. It's one of the easiest energy systems to get your head around. But since it contains basically a recycling process, it's one of the easiest also to kind of trip up on, if that makes sense. So essentially, before we delve into the effects of creating, need to know

where it sits within the energy system basically. So you might be aware that we have our energy currency of the body, which is known as ATP or adenosine triphosphate. And our muscle cells rely on this to fuel every contraction. However, the ATP stores within the muscles are extremely limited and get used very quickly. So this is usually within about two to three seconds of high intensity activity.

Now, ATP itself is too unstable to be the only way that we store energy. And it's actually prone to kind of spontaneous degradation, which would wreak havoc on our tightly controlled systems if we had just had energy being released, you know, kind of like an uncontrolled fashion. So we need a kind carefully controlled supply and demand situation for when we're handling a rapid demand. So just as a side note, we're talking about the ATP PC system here.

We do have other energy systems, our oxidative and glycolytic systems, which are producing energy at a still rapid but more steady rate. And the ATP PCCC system is essentially what our body relies on to very quickly regenerate ATP. So it surrounds basically what's known as phosphocreatine, which is another high energy compound stored within our muscle cells.

And this is formed from creatine and the phosphate groups from ATP. So another piece of the puzzle here is an enzyme called creatine kinase. And this helps break down phosphocreatine into creatine and a phosphate group. And it's the phosphate group, which is then donated to ADP, which then forms ATP. Now this process is rapid, almost instantaneous.

and has the capacity to provide energy for up to 10 to 15 seconds of really intense activity. And it's at this point, depending on the adjusted output, that the body will become dependent on glycolysis or aerobic respiration to continue a supply of energy. So a kind of analogy here could be how a kind of petrol engine is used to charge a battery, which has a limited capacity in like a hybrid supercar, which is then used to power the electric motor.

which release a huge amount of energy for kind of rapid acceleration. So our third step is phosphocreatine regeneration. So at this point, you are left with a pool of ADP. We have inorganic phosphate, essentially meaning that it's not bound to anything. And then we've got our pool of free creatine. So once the energy demand drops off, which could be during rest or reduced output, essentially where there's a

a lower need for immediate ATP hydrolysis. The body uses the surplus ATP produced by glycolysis or aerobic respiration in the background to re-synthesize our phosphocreatine stores. And this time the enzyme creatine kinase actually plays a role in catalyzing the recycling process rather than the breakdown. So finally, we come to the role of exogenous creatine. So creatine basically we are taken as a sub-

In essence, when we take creatine supplementation, we can increase our muscle saturation by up to 30%. And the more creatine we have stored, the faster and more efficient we are able to resynthesize phosphor creatine due to improved enzyme kinetics, which is known as a mass action effect. Now, rather confusingly, creatine supplementation doesn't significantly enhance baseline phosphor creatine capacity.

but rather its rate of resynthesis, which is why it's particularly beneficial for intermittent or repeated bouts of high intensity exercise. So a bit of an overview there really in terms of the process of ATP use during muscle contraction, the role of phosphocreatine in essentially buffering that, and then the resynthesis of phosphocreatine in essentially regenerating our stores to repeat efforts.

of a high intensity nature. There are other pieces to the puzzle. So I won't give you too much. I expect you'll have questions surrounding, well, why do we see improvements in peak force? Why do we see potentially improvements in kind of single contraction capacity, so sustained contractions and so on?

Ollie Torr (07:12)
I think, firstly, it's kind of really nice the way that you've explained that because I think we are, and even this whole episode is we're talking about creating, we're talking about supplement, the element of taking something that's outside of the body and then, you know, supplementing something that's naturally produced within the body. But I think the good thing that you've highlighted there is this is part of an energy system.

is part of that pathway of producing force in the first place, there's naturally a current whether you supplement or not. And then that's the other analogy of which I haven't heard before is the the electric car that's powered runs out, you've got a bit of fuel in the petrol side of the engine, like in the hybrid, that gets that going again, and then recharges. And like you said, there's a bit of a cycle there. But the main thing that people need to be aware of is this

energy system is definitely in use anyway. And like you said, that two to 10 seconds of effort is where it's most effective. And then we're talking about supplementing on top. One of the things that's interesting with the time element, and I think we'll go into this in terms of when it's most effective is we're talking about two to 10 seconds or, you know, that rapid production. We're talking about the same muscle contraction here. And I think it's one thing that people overlook is when we're climbing,

We're so many different muscle fibers all the time, so many different intramuscular coordination. You're not firing the same muscle fibers over and over for the full 10 seconds, then you're fully depleted. There's a lot going on, isn't there? So you'll be using creatine for over 10 seconds, for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, but they'll all be in different muscle fibers. So it kind of works for a longer duration if there's more muscles involved in that movement. Is that right?

Edward Gibson-Smith (09:00)
Yeah, absolutely. It's something essentially that we tap into on and off. Throughout the vast majority of high intensity exercises, it's rare that we are taking a muscle to its max until depletion. The reason why it's often kind of, I suppose portrayed or explained in that manner is we think about our energy systems working on this kind of continuum of maximum output. The reality

We are very rarely pushing these energy systems to their absolute maximum at any given moment. And we kind of dip in and out of these various energy systems as a predominant. And that's the key thing, as a predominant source of energy. are never all ultimately either switched on or off, if that makes sense. So, know, in climbing, even if we are talking about the same sustained contraction, within that contraction, you will get varying output.

So various force production. And if we think about, you know, bouldering, if we think we're on a board and we latch a hold, we're producing high amounts of force in that hand that's latched, we might have a foot come loose. We might choose to remove a foot. Those forces or the required forces to stay on are going to increase. We're then going to place a foot back on. We might move our other hand to a more favorable hold. You know, the force is going to be looking a lot more like this, even though you might even perceive it as, you know, I'm clinging on for dear life here.

the actual muscle may not be working at its absolute peak the entire time. So we talk about intermittent exercise. You know, we can almost view that as being between contractions, but also between bouts of contractions.

Ollie Torr (10:44)
I that's one thing that's really important because when we talk about like this continuum, I think this is where maybe in the past we've been a little bit criticized for saying that it's so defined in what you're doing climbing is I don't want someone to go, well, I'm a route climber. I'm on for two minutes. This creatine is not applicable to me because I have climbed for more than 10 seconds. Like you've just said, this is not the case. Climbing is the definition of intermittent exercise.

Forces are constantly changing, movements changing, muscles are changing. So the element of creatine and use of that creatine system, that creatine phosphate system is constantly in and out of play, it? One thing I wanted to start with was before we kind of delve into the climbing research and kind of the, what you've done in particular and sort of the theory in climbing, kind of, do you know, or would you be able to explain where the current kind of standing is on

creatine in the wider academic area and in sport because as far as I'm aware caffeine and creatine are the most researched and the best-standing supplements in sport and is that still the case?

Edward Gibson-Smith (11:56)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, we've got decades of research behind the use of creatine as an ergogenic aid. You know, we've touched on its kind of primary mechanisms and its primary use in sport, which is to boost that phosphocreatine regeneration or resynthesis. But its application is widespread and is often quite context specific. So you've already touched on the fact that people who might be doing long routes think, well, is creatine for me if I'm...

you know, sustaining my output for long durations of time. But one, we know that the difficulty of moves and the force required in moves is going to be different. know, they, particularly when we were climbing on rock, you might encounter the crux of a problem of highest finger force required or highest pulling forces required at the very top of the very top of the problem, in which case, or sorry, the route, and in which case you are

going to be tapping into that energy system to get you through that. So an improved capacity there is still going to be beneficial, even if it's not from the get go.

And we do have research in sports such as cycling and running that has suggested the benefit of creatine.

Um, you know, when the demands are particularly high, so it might be sprint finish, for example, someone might've done 120 kilometers on a bike, but it's still beneficial in that sprint finish. So yeah, it's, it's very well researched. Um, it's definitely sits within, you know, the very few number of supplements that can be considered, um, robust essentially. So we're seeing consistent results by that.

what I mean by that. The effect size is variable. We'll probably come on to what might change the effect size on an individual basis. But it largely depends on essentially what an individual's baseline creating capacity is like or saturation is like, how much scope there is to improve that. And there's obviously differences between individuals.

as well as potentially sexes and ages as well with that. So,

Ollie Torr (14:16)
In other sports, are we seeing supplementation of creatine being used all the time? And I actually don't know. Is there any sort of banned level of it in Olympic sports? I just thought of that question actually. don't know it's a banned supplement.

Edward Gibson-Smith (14:32)
No, so essentially it's not a banned supplement. is obviously anything that you are taking that's supplemental should be batch tested if you are taking part in competitive sport and you're under a kind of federation that does do drugs testing because anything that you put into your body that's I'm going to say naturally sourced, you know, it can be cross contaminated depending on where it's produced and things of that nature need to be

considered. So if I'm working with a competitive athlete, I'm ensuring that any supplement they take is batch tested to be on the safe side, but it's not inherently known to be contaminated. know, creatine is, as we said, it's one of the most widely used supplements, but it's also one of the most widely available supplements as well. And the likelihood, and I don't know this for sure, but the likelihood is that there's very few manufacturers.

there's probably lots of brands that tap into the same supply for creatine. I would imagine, I know that lots of brands sell creatine as kind of like a trademark career pure, which is a particular standardized kind of purity. So it's not really a huge concern unless you're a competitive athlete that just needs to make kind of damn sure that you're not taking anything prohibited.

Ollie Torr (15:58)
thing is just read

the back of the packet and check there's not a strong man amphetamine cut in there somewhere.

Edward Gibson-Smith (16:03)
Yeah,

yeah, may contain traces of trend.

Ollie Torr (16:09)
Yeah, exactly.

So in terms of so it's widely used in by other athletes, other sports, it's not a band supplement. It's something that is highly researched, usually a good effect size and very consistent. Always seeing the same in climbing.

Edward Gibson-Smith (16:26)
So up until this point, what we have in Climbing is essentially anecdote. And with anecdote, you'll get individuals that will report large favorable effects. You'll have individuals that report no effect or perceivable effects at all. You'll have people that will report even adverse effects potentially, depending on how well it suits that individual. It's not completely free of side effects.

But those side effects are usually very easy to mitigate and it's very tolerant, sorry, it's a very tolerable substance and most people will get used to it. mean, primarily gastrointestinal discomfort would be considered a side effect, that's typically avoided by not taking very large quantities on an empty stomach, taking creatine with a carbohydrate containing food.

or fluid which will enhance absorption and avoiding, as I said, the kind of loading. Although, and we'll touch on my research in a moment, but we don't tend to see that many reports of gastrointestinal discomfort. Even within loading protocols in the literature, it still seems to be something that's kind of widespread in terms of anecdotal reports.

But guess that just comes down to the numbers, because even something that's this heavily researched is creating, in terms of the participant number combined throughout all the studies, there's still only going to be a very small percentage of the number of users worldwide over the last 30 years.

Ollie Torr (18:05)
in terms of tolerance, we're talking about your body's able to do it without feeling discomfort. And generally that's relatively low. And a strategy to help it is take it with more fluids, take it with carbohydrate and generally on a full stomach. And then for yourself in terms of generally speaking, what we're talking in terms of...

Edward Gibson-Smith (18:20)
Mm-hmm.

Ollie Torr (18:28)
the amounts that class as loading versus maintenance.

Edward Gibson-Smith (18:33)
Yeah, so a classic loading phase would be 20 grams a day between a four and seven day period. So it's quite a lot. You'd split that, it'd be split doses. So you'd take four doses of five grams across the course of a day. And one of the main reasons that this is still utilized is for research purposes. So my own study utilized the loading phase because essentially

Ollie Torr (18:37)
Wow.

Edward Gibson-Smith (19:03)
enables us to study the effects of creatine on an acute basis. So you're not going to get any effect from taking creatine, you know, a single dose of creatine and then trying to look at the effects because we need a period of time to actually reach muscle saturation or increase those muscle stores. If you do this over a long period of time, then you are introducing more external variables into, you know, let's say, for example, you're doing a performance test or performance.

related protocol, then if we did a gradual loading, so if we took a smaller amount, three to five grams per day, which will still reach muscle saturation typically within a four week period. But within those four weeks, you are into, as I said, you're introducing other variables, you're introducing a training effect potentially, you know, let's say if someone is already doing finger strength training, they're already climbing regularly and such, you know,

it's tricky then to determine after a 28 day period whether or not any effect that you see is down to the supplement or it's just down to the fact that it's four weeks later.

Ollie Torr (20:12)
So the one week heavy loading, your body will get the effects of what you're trying to do with the creatine, but without necessarily the training effects. So you get to see that acute response. is 20 grams, obviously a six foot four guy with loads of muscles will be able to absorb more than a very petite woman, for example. But do we know how much your body can absorb all in once? Is 20 grams a general maximum like?

20 grams of protein in one sitting, for example, is normal.

Edward Gibson-Smith (20:44)
Yeah, so it's a good question really. I don't think it's really determined that precisely. I think there's potentially one or two papers that looked at essentially dosages that are based on body weight. The vast majority of them do use this standardized protocol and it seems to be that it's sufficient to still saturate muscles of a larger individual or a smaller individual, I guess.

I suppose the only time that you might deviate from that as if an individual was experiencing adverse effects and you would potentially taper that down or drop the load phase altogether. If they were a research participant, chances are they would drop out or their data wouldn't be included. Because if you had an acute period, let's say they were loading for five days or six days and you had testing seven days apart, if for three, four of those days that individual was unable to complete the full dose,

due to discomfort or they had other symptoms without spelling it out, then they're not likely to have actually absorbed the creatine that they were dosed. I mean, that's where some of the more invasive studies come into play and we can actually test changes in muscle creating saturation. And unfortunately in climbing, you're not gonna get ethical approval to do biopsy on muscle biopsy.

Ollie Torr (21:46)
Thank you.

Edward Gibson-Smith (22:11)
forearm. It's just too high a risk. It's too small, it's too high a risk. There's too many kind of major vessels. The network of nerves are much harder to navigate as well. So yeah, the risk is too high basically. And I think it's very unlikely to see that change anytime soon.

Ollie Torr (22:14)
because it's too small, too small and too many veins.

Ollie Torr (22:37)
So now we've run through how creatine works in the body along with some of the side effects. let's hear from Tom Herbert, who's a nutritional practitioner about how he's using creatine with the climbers in the field every day. We work with some of the same athletes, so it's really interesting for me to hear directly from him about how his practices are affecting the athletes that I train.

Tom Herbert (22:58)
a lot of people know me as the useful coach,

basically I'm a nutrition coach, or rather now what I call myself is a cognitive behavioral nutrition coach. And the reason for that is in the last few years, so I've been doing this about six years now. And in the last few years,

I've pivoted to include a lot more of the psychology, behavioral psychology and things. Because with nutrition, it tends to be a surface level for a lot of other things going on. And I think I've worked with about 360 or so climbers now. And there's this definite themes that come up. And so now I do what I call long form coaching.

which is really unlimited calls with my clients. And that allows us the space to just really have a conversation about a lot more deeper stuff that's going on behind why someone is choosing to eat in a certain way, relation to body image as well and all this sort of stuff. So it's a very wrapped up thing. But that's what I do basically is, yeah, coach people more than just do nutrition.

Ollie Torr (24:05)
That's amazing. So it's very much in your mind the nutrition side is the tip of the iceberg and like you say everything that kind of contributes to that and the decision making and the weight behind decisions is all far more behavioural based and needs a little bit more exploration rather than here's the calories in calories out the macros on the piece of paper.

Ollie Torr (24:27)
So as part of your coaching with climbers, I assume you're discussing the use of supplements with them and I imagine Creating comes into that. Is that something you advise all climbers to try?

Tom Herbert (24:36)
so what I do with creatine is because it is almost outside of maybe caffeine, but even it might even be caffeine in terms of its effect, the vast amount of data we have on its effect of it being efficacious, right? It's always the first thing I ask people to try. I have to do a kind of a cell to it because obviously there is...

some negatives that people seem to have, which we can talk about, but it's definitely one of these things where I say to people, let's, we're working together over a period of time, let's try, let's apply this and let's see if there's a difference, right? If we're talking about particulars, then it would be, our vegan athletes would be the first demographic that I would say definitely try this, right? We have some data to show

that vegan athletes tend to have slightly lower creatine stores than omnivorous.

And that's probably because of two things. One, we do get some creatine from the flesh that we eat because it's in the tissue, but also the precursors to creatine, things like glycine and stuff. So if those things are lower in the diet for a vegan, maybe your synthesis rate is slightly rate limited or lower than a non-niferous. And so vegans probably respond pretty well. I don't see a big difference between male and female.

I with female athletes, and I don't want to generalize, but obviously I've worked with a large group of people now, so I can make some informed generalization. I find that creatine can work on a psychological level. I have a theory, this with old people as well, I wish I could get my mum to take creatine, because I have this theory that maybe there is a feedback.

with energy stores in the tissues, that whether there's a feedback mechanism to the brain to say that we have the potential to do activity and try hard. This is rubbish out of my head, but I just have this theory. And so, for...

For some individuals, having this resting, higher energy state, and again, I have a bias subset of people, because a lot of people are coming to me, coming from maybe sort of under-eating, or having a feeling that they're under-eating, and that will be a discrepancy male and female again. So if I have someone who's coming in female, they're probably under-eating carbohydrates, and over-eating protein, which is an interesting thing.

And so it's this sort of double whammy, I wanna bring carbs up and bring creatine in and they straight away will report, wow, I just feel like I'm super powerful and we use words like robust and just like solid and much more predictable in terms of the performance. So yeah, there's no one that I don't give creatine to unless they don't wanna spend more money on supplements. It's not a must.

The other thing is I think of creatine much more in terms of a training modifier versus a performance supplement. In fact, I would say that with some of my top-end climbers, we have legitimate discussions about removing creatine before a project. And we can talk about that.

Ollie Torr (27:40)
And why is that?

Yeah, well in terms of a performance modifier, sorry, rather than a performance modifier training tool.

Tom Herbert (27:47)
So yeah, let

me clarify that first. my model of the, let's call it the training block, and obviously it's difficult with climbing because you don't necessarily have an off season, right? But one of my big things is I want my athletes to learn to climb at their heaviest, most.

well-fed, healthy, robust, resilient state, which like I said earlier, could be three kilos heavier than their peak peak performance. So what that means is that their performance is going to be lower, relatively speaking, right? Because they're slightly heavier until they get used to that.

But what creatine is doing, I think, in the most part is it allows you to step up the amount of volume that you can handle in your training. Now that's gonna kind of, it maybe just puts you ahead of the curve of what you could have done in a period of time. So it steps you up. So in my biggest way of creatine really, apart from some other health benefits we can talk about, is just it allows you to do more work. The data is not strong on it

improving recovery, which is disappointing. For instance, they've done creatine whilst people have been in hospital on bed rest. It doesn't prevent sarcopenia, right? The main mechanism by which creatine has shown to increase muscle mass is just really the amount of training you can do, right?

Ollie Torr (29:18)
Yeah, that's 100 % exactly the...

what I've kind of looked into and also experienced him, I know I've had some athletes that will, like you said, what can I do whilst I'm injured or what can I do during rest or on holiday? And creatine, you will just piss it straight out because it requires muscle tension and activity for you to utilise that. And I think that's one thing that tends to get missed and why I think your method has a lot of legs in terms of around training, at least in like a macro level is

In a training week, that's great. In a recovery phase, that's great. But the next deload phase, where you're not doing anything, your body doesn't require that extra energy. So why utilize it?

It's interesting actually what you said earlier about that feeling of extra energy and it links in with the ability to train. I sort of older athletes like your mum is, I remember working with a vegan functional fitness athlete in the gym and he used to get creatine rage. And I personally experienced this actually quite a lot if I load. I just feel almost itchy muscled, too much, kind of a little bit like I need

to do something kind of a little bit aggy and I wonder if that's that related feeling of I've got more potential within my muscles right now and it has to go somewhere because I've stored it and it wants to be used. that that link in?

Tom Herbert (30:49)
I don't know, but there must be at some level, right? What people kind of misunderstand, I think, about creatine is creatine can really be thought of as glycogen in the muscle. It's the same sort of relationship. You eat carbohydrate, goes to glucose, glucose goes to glycogen. You have local glucose available for your muscle cells to actually use. Creatine is not like a supplement like caffeine that has this sort of...

like alien effect in the body, right? It literally is the molecule that you're storing, that you create and store in your tissue. We just take it as something like creatine monohydrate, because that's just the form, and then it builds creatine and creatine phosphate in the actual tissue. So I think that's why we're starting to see data on things like...

mental health or brain health by using high dose creatine because you're increasing the brain's natural storage of creatine.

if we're to talk about like a Xeno supplement, Or things that are greater than the body would normally do, we can talk about creatine like that. There's no way that we would be able to get the saturation levels of creatine by consuming meat, right? You'd be pounds and pounds of meat a day to get even close to that levels. So it is a supraphysiological amount, right? That is greater than if you're doing, carbohydrate loading, right? So it is...

It is a phenomenal discovery that we can boost this and it has that effect. So I think there is something to that, that I think you have a feedback of energy state and so that can improve a lot of things.

Ollie Torr (32:32)
Yeah, that particular gentleman came, I remember him coming into the gym and just flipping some equipment over just because he was so aggy and was creatine rage. And I just assumed he was juicing up properly. yeah, I do.

Tom Herbert (32:43)
I mean, yeah.

I mean for someone like

who's vegan it could be the case because there might be quite a contrast, right? If I've got someone who's a carnivore diet, right, it's probably not going to notice, right? I've only had one client, and this was years back, who was a non-responder and that was Matt Cousins. I don't know if he ever tried it again, I would guess not, but he was one of my first athletes along with Aidan Roberts and he said it made no difference to him at all.

Aidan (33:17)
I am Aidan Roberts. I am a climber. Well, a boulderer. I'd say just pretty much a boulderer. So I travel and explore boulders

Ollie Torr (33:29)
So in terms of your training over the years, obviously we've tried loads of different stuff. One of them being creatine cycling. And I know I've spoken to Tom Herbert, who worked with you on this. So first of all, kind of what's your experience been with creatine? When did you take it and do you still take it?

Aidan (33:48)
Yeah, it's funny actually I find generally just a prerequisite to this conversation often it's quite hard to pinpoint the exact value of things and I don't think I've ever really applied the like a rigorous scientific method to like the effects of creatine on me because often I've only used them in a time where like I will be like

like a training cycle is quite a long period of time to commit to and I've never like really compared like matching training cycles with or without creatine because it's quite like a big commitment to make and there's so many other factors at play that like require experimentation that creatine is one that I haven't like been so thorough about in like on like a long-term scale

But I've used it quite a lot over the years and I definitely recall a season in 2018 when I was consistently using creatine and then I think I started working with you at the end of 2019 and throughout the training blocks I've like cycled a little bit to using it and not So I mean I assume from your discussion with Tom people know the common like strengths and limitations of creatine I think like

Stylistically, I've always been someone who would favor the much smaller holds, which generally is commonly associated with being a little lighter. Partly, small holds were requiring quite small muscle groups in the forearms. But actually, the thing that has almost been more limiting for me has been the effect it has on skin and the number of attempts you have.

And I often would find that there'd be quite an effect of my body weight on my maximal performance on small holds. And found that creatine was quite an obvious difference in that, which say if there's a couple of kilos of water retention, that's quite a significant amount of weight that I would not want to...

I couldn't afford to lose two kilos of body weight in order to accommodate for the extra weight there. So I think it is something that I have found limiting. So I don't take creatine. Currently I haven't taken it for a while. But the theory I have, I kind of would consider definitely is the training cycles on creatine and the benefits that that allows.

I think I did really notice that as well, the effects of the ATP and like kind of just a general feeling of power. And I could notice it, especially like when doing off the wall things, like just generally feeling like I had a lot more power. So the theory of like training cycles on creatine, even if you don't maintain it throughout like a performance, I kind of think...

could be quite a legitimate approach. I think it's kind of been complicated for myself in that my training cycles generally have contained an element of performance as well. So like I'll be like working on a project at the same time when I'm training. And so I've like never really like purely isolated the training cycle. I've not often done that anyway. So yeah, a long way about saying I think for a climber,

where the style is, I think there is a style of climb as well, which would really lend itself to creatine, say if you're climbing in font and you've got a really body power problem or other body power problems exist outside of font. But I think you just have to understand the value and limitations of it and see where it applies to.

yourself.

Ollie Torr (37:51)
Yeah, it was definitely something where when we first started working together and you had more, you were still performing in the off season. So we did very much like a bass phase, didn't we? Then like performance phases, base phase, performance. And it was a little bit more discreet because there was the end of sort of the comp period, but you're still kind of in that cycle of bass winter. And it was kind of easier to risk that. And I remember we always talk about weight, not like...

obsessively but we just check in don't we and we talk about that and it was okay to see that go up and like you said you were building your work capacity at the start of that season but as you've gone you know your your base is now really high and you're performing more of the year totally like you said the skin and your ability to pull on the small holds it does make quite a big difference doesn't it and like if you were saying I want to do a six month cycle we could probably put that

again but considering you're performing all year I think that is going to get harder and harder isn't it and like you said if you change style I think you'd get away with it but for you as like the level of athlete you are and skin being such a factor I totally agree that that increase needs to be timed really really well.

Aidan (39:10)
Yeah, think that is a good description. think timing is a really important thing. And actually I remember when we were first working together, I had whole intentions to continue the competition season. so that first like...

winter we were training together, it was like we were then led into the lockdowns and I was still kind of with the intention of that I was like a comp climber who loved rock climbing and so like I was kind of in that like really committing to the training cycle and was quite happy to like understand that that's part of the process and like I don't need to be like firing on all cylinders at all times and

I do think I've had moments where I could have like, it is possible to find that in like, within my rock climbing as well, but I think, yeah, more in the more last couple of years, I've definitely like integrated like, yeah, projecting amongst my training and kind of I feel like the skill factor of executing on rock feels like so relevant and such like a trainable skill that it's almost been more beneficial.

for me not to commit individually to either, just a complete training season and a complete performance season, but integrate them a bit just to maintain that execution skill. And so I think the benefits of that, as far, weighed, wholly compartmentalizing them. But that being said, I can really understand if someone is...

doesn't have regular access to their projects and they might be preparing for a trip they have in four months and have a training cycle even if it is a really crumpy climb that they are looking to do I think there is a real place to commit to training using Creatine because I think the thing that I notice maybe more so even than the increased power

was the ability to recover between sets and feel like I had power throughout my set. And I think I'm right saying that that's the theory. You can replenish your ATP at a much faster rate. Yeah,

Ollie Torr (41:23)
Yeah,

Aidan (41:25)
yeah, I think that's almost something I found more noticeable.

Ollie Torr (41:29)
And I think just as a reference, obviously it makes a little bit more difference. So in theory, it makes more difference depending on what your diet is, depending on whether you eat much red meat and so on. What's been your standard diet?

Aidan (41:45)
yeah, holy carnivore. No. I've been vegetarian since birth, so I believe ingest no additional creatine. So I think that's probably somewhere where I would notice a much more radical difference than someone who maybe has a diet which consistently has red meat.

Ollie Torr (42:06)
So we know that Aiden does respond well to Creatine and he has his own considerations that limit why he might use it. What about those other non-responders though, like you mentioned Matt, like how would you describe a non-responder Tom?

Because one of the things I've heard is if you don't put on any excess weight, then it means you're a non-responder. Is that actually true? If you don't add any extra body mass, have you even adapted to taking creatine?

Tom Herbert (42:33)
So we have some genetic, it's a genetic transporter problem where I believe that creatine is prevented from being transported into tissues. And so there's some studies where they will look at supplementing creatine plus arginine and glycine. I can't remember, that was a study from a while back, can't remember, but that seemed to make some a difference. But.

That might be one of the reasons why people don't respond. But I think, yeah, I've never heard of it in terms of that they don't get muscular hydration change. But if it's a transporter thing, then maybe that would be the case, right? Because for people listening, the reason that creatine changes hydration state in the muscle is because it has this osmolytic effect. It changes the osmolytis, and so water is being pulled into the muscle.

yeah, so I think you might be right that somebody who doesn't appear to be gaining water weight in the muscles could be a non-responder because of that transporter thing. But the people that I have heard, and I've only spoken to think two people, one Matt Cousins, which would have been years back, but the other person just said, I just don't notice anything.

And it's quite great, what would you notice? That's a terrific thing. So when I'm selling creatine to someone, for instance, when I sell it to female athletes particularly, I always use pull-ups as an example, right? Meaning that it seems to be, right, if they're in the bracket of people who can do some pull-ups, then it appears that they can get an extra rep in.

That's, or for boulderers, I say you can kind of, you feel like you can do another burn quicker, meaning that your recovery time between attempts is shorter, right? So that would be the kind of, that would be the positive of it in that acute sense, which is true, which is how it works anyway, which is why it's, the recovery time between attempts is shorter.

Ollie Torr (44:36)
Yeah, I would actually completely mirror that in terms of the measurement that I suggest for my athletes is to see if it works is I'll do a strength interval session, which might be repetitions of a same boulder or an ANCAP project session, which is a really hard about 45 to one minute sequence of climbing. And I noticed this myself on my current projects. It's about 45 seconds long.

I was cycling creatine, which I have done recently, and I could feel that at the end of the problem I was not failing because of a power endurance element, I was failing from a technical perspective, but I actually ran out of creatine, so I I naturally cycled off of it for a couple of weeks. And whether placebo, whether it was fatigue from work, but that performance at the end I was powering down, and that was part of the failing point. Back on it.

within a couple of weeks. And I've not been on the problem too much, but I noticed this is a technical perspective again. And I think that's.

I've noticed that a lot with other athletes where I'll ask them, are you failing because of a technical strength perspective or have you noticed that extra rep? So for me, is it working for you? You've got the extra rep in. And just making sure that they are aware that if the problem gets harder or the weight goes up on the pull-ups, you've got to consider that with the extra rep. So the testing benchmark has to be the same.

Tom Herbert (46:07)
Yeah, that, see, so for me as a coach, because I'm providing the foundation which your training is being built off, right? That's how I always say to people. My role as a nutritionist, right, outside of the behavioral stuff, is to basically get you to have the highest quality training, right? Can you get, do as much training as possible and recover it and rinse and repeat? That's kind of my role, right, in the background. So.

Getting extra reps is my job because I'm trying to say to someone, for instance, eat something sugary as you switch between two sessions, right?

Does it allow you to do a higher quality repetitions? Yes, we'll then have the tonics chocolate wafer. Putting a bunch of carbohydrates before the session, does that allow you to maintain a higher quality of workload and rinse and repeat? Yes, it does. So that's why we do it. So that's really the selling point, think, of creatine. And that's why I call it rather a training.

driver versus a performance because I think the difference is when we come to the performance element of creatine and whether or not it benefits it or hampers it

This is what is super interesting and this is the question that is obviously why you got me on the podcast is we don't know necessarily and don't have any hard data on some of the negatives in climbing. They're real things and people report different things. So on the most simplest sense, you when I've worked with a very high, you know, double digit V climber,

We took creatine out because they legitimately knew that they could hang on to that edge longer if they were lighter. Right? Now this person's already lean. There's no dieting down that they could do. But by pulling creatine out, we maybe saved about a kilo the most. It wasn't really that. But that would allow the sending of the project or allow him more attempts at it. Because for a boulder problem,

It's generally not an energy issue. You're not running out of energy to do the problem. Maybe if you're doing multiple attempts over a week, then it is a different question. But if you're just working on something, it's not an energy issue. So if we can shave a bit of weight off, then maybe that has an effect. So there's that side of it.

The downside is this mysterious flash pump, maintained pump. Is this a real thing, right? In terms of the, let's call it, what do we call it, data set that I have. So if I've worked with, I don't know, let's say 360 climbers now in the last five years, less than, well, certainly less than 10 people have reported negative effects of creatine.

Three people have reported, four people have reported what I call significant negative effects. I had one guy who reported cramping. There is people who report cramping from creatine, but the literature on it basically says this doesn't exist, really.

He was amazing because he allowed us to try. So what happened is that we started creatine, he got cramped. No, he was cramping before and that's one of the reasons he came to work for me, is trying to figure out why is his forearms cramping, right?

First thing we did is we put all my supplementation and my strategy in place. He said he was cramping a lot. So I said, okay, let's take creatine out. We took creatine out for two weeks. Like that, cramping disappeared. So I said, great. Can we just for the study do a loading dose of creatine so we can get at the effect very quick. One weekend, cramping came back and I was like, this is fascinating. I said, I love it. Obviously for you, creatine is not helping you. So don't take creatine, right? I did say to him, you could try a lower dose.

maybe just spread it, you know, only on training days or I can't remember how we ended up with that but that was one thing which I thought was fascinating.

And I don't know whether it's placebo, but there is some people do report that there seems to be an ergogenic effect. I don't know if that, we have no data to show that putting time in creatine around training has any performance improvement. Is it just because they're getting double the amount of creatine? I don't know, but I've seen it happen a few times.

Ollie Torr (50:46)
And what sort of population, you said sort of the older athletes, so what age are we talking? Is it male and female that have noticed that effect?

Tom Herbert (50:54)
Only males, mainly. I think I had one female. the two guys that come to mind were both, one guy I was about 55, 56, and the other one was about 45 to 47. can't remember the age. But it would, but.

When I get somebody in that demographic, they've kind of tried everything. So we talk about 1%. And this is also where some other supplements that would come in. And it's like, okay, let's try to see if we can find these 1%. And one of my 1 % is, why don't you try putting creatine, three grams of creatine in your pre-workout and then have it afterwards? Do you notice that has a change? We don't have any data and I think it's because there's no way for us to really measure it.

But in theory, that creatine is gonna be in circulation and maybe making its way into tissues and therefore having a kind of lag behind.

So creatine is being recycled and used and maybe the creatine in circulation is coming and being absorbed and so you're kind of restoring creatine levels in a sense in a real time. you're timing it, most supplements within half an hour to an hour are in the tissues that they're directed to. So there could be something in that that you get a little extra effect in a kind of passive, whatever, a lag behind.

Ollie Torr (52:19)
Yeah, it's an interesting theory that isn't it because I think we've seen the same with collagen for example, doing that pre-workout to deliver that to the tissues where there's not usually good blood flow. I think creatine has an afterlife in terms of stores of around 30 days, I think in like older populations in

Tom Herbert (52:25)
very good something.

Ollie Torr (52:39)
So I guess those stalls will stay high, but like you say, we're very good at excreting anything the body doesn't need or want right now. yeah, timing it, I can imagine is really important. that's a really good example of a population where you see an effect. I know postmenopausal women, see a creatine effect in bone density, which is something that I find really interesting.

Tom Herbert (52:46)
Yes.

Ollie Torr (53:06)
So Ed, I'm really interested in knowing whether there's any research about how it affects different populations. Would you recommend creating differently for older athletes and different sexes?

Edward Gibson-Smith (53:18)
So yeah, well, I mean, one of the things is that we've got certain trends that you can attribute to either age or sex, but the differences between those groups of people are not particularly more prominent or more significant than just individual differences actually within those groups, if that makes sense. So.

Ollie Torr (53:41)
Okay.

Edward Gibson-Smith (53:41)
Yeah, so what I'm trying to get at there is obviously we've got this anticipated loss of muscle with ageing. But if we got a group of 1,030 year old males, there would be quite a high degree of variation in the amount of muscle mass that those males had. Does that make sense? So we've already got a cohort within a cohort that might benefit potentially more so than a muscular older individual.

Ollie Torr (54:05)
Okay, so it's to do with muscle mass rather than the age of the athlete themselves.

Edward Gibson-Smith (54:06)
Bye.

Yeah, so basically there's a few different things that will all interact with one another. Our metabolism on a whole is less efficient when we get older. So our oxidative production of ATP is potentially less efficient. obviously the ATP that's produced in that manner is actually used as part of phosphocreatine resynthesis. essentially by...

trying to think of the best way of putting this.

There's multiple systems that are essentially working together and you can kind of take off the burden a little bit. So take off the burden of aging, for example, by enhancing one of those.

So, and then again, when it comes to there being sex differences, we know that there is some degree of hormonal interaction. Say for example, with estrogen and creatine degradation, we know that there is some minor differences in muscle fiber type as well between males and females. So with males typically having a greater composition of fast twitch, so type two, and particularly type 2X.

fibers than females. So you'd think, well, if their bodies are more reliant on that particular energy system or means of producing force, then they have a greater scope in terms of improvements by taking creatine. But then again, female athletes will have lower pre-existing stores of creatine. And so creatine supplementation might have a greater relative effect. So we're looking at

we're looking at basically comparing a larger absolute effect in males, or a potentially larger relative effect in females. Again, does that make sense? And you see the same thing with the agent athlete as well. So the relative effect in an agent athlete might be greater, but ultimately the more muscle a person has, the greater capacity to store creativity. So.

Ollie Torr (55:58)
Yes, yes, yes.

So in terms of if you are more muscular, regardless of age or sex, you're more likely to see a greater effect. But in terms of the relativity of the effect, it's about kind of the, if you're a skinnier athlete or a female athlete, you might feel the difference a lot more. It might make a effect against your own performance compared to your peers. Even though the peer might be able to absorb more creatine who's got more muscle.

Edward Gibson-Smith (56:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Ollie Torr (56:46)
They might notice they've added more weight. Their total power might go up in terms of the total load, but the skinnier athlete or the female athlete or older athlete might feel the difference a lot more for them personally.

Edward Gibson-Smith (56:58)
Yeah, that's probably the best way, the best way of putting it. Yeah, I mean, again, we're looking at a topic that's very well researched. We're talking about thousands of studies across many different cohorts, so many different groups of individuals. So younger athletes have combined sexes, females only, males only, even muscle group specific changes. You know, if you said to me, well, what's the overall effect of creatine if you took a combination of all the research? Well,

Firstly, I don't think that figure exists. think it's, you know, the research outputs are so thick and fast with creating it's quite hard to synthesize a metronarsis that gave us those answers. But I think 5 % and possibly up to 10 % depending on the parameter would be a reasonable expectation. But there's lots of studies out there that show next to no effect.

And we've already touched on the fact of what makes a responder a responder. There's lots of different confounding factors when we talk about this. And one of the other things I wanted to briefly touch on was vegan and vegetarian athletes in particular. So vegan and vegetarian is

Ollie Torr (58:13)
Yeah, that's something

that always stands out. If you're not a red meat eater, maybe it's better.

Edward Gibson-Smith (58:17)
Yeah.

Yes, so potentially because so our bodies creatine stores are derived from both the endogenous production and exogenous sources. So the endogenous production is what we've synthesized by the body using amino acids, arginine, glycine and methionine. And then we've got our exogenous sources. So basically what we've taken in diet from the diet, not even excluding, sorry, including creatine as a supplement. I'm talking about

creatine that's within the muscle tissue of animals that we Sounds almost a bit grim thinking of it like that, eating muscle tissue, but that's ultimately what it is. And the three amino acids, so the arginine, glycine, and methionine tend to be found in lower quantities in plant-based foods versus animal foods. So we've got kind of like a kind two-tailed effect here because we've got on the one hand, we've got potentially no dietary intake.

of creatine because obviously a vegan or a vegetarian is not consuming the muscle tissue. But then also within the plant-based foods themselves, they tend to have lower levels of arginine, glycine, and methionine. Now, arginine and glycine are actually considered non-essential. To go one step further back, we actually can produce or synthesize arginine and glycine as well. So it's not even that they are required necessarily by a dietary intake.

synthesis of them is very energy intensive and can be less efficient if the amino acids are not available from the diet. due to both the dietary and synthesis limitations, vegans and vegetarians tend to have lower levels of baseline creatine and therefore tend to respond more favourably to supplementation. So that's another kind of useful consideration.

Ollie Torr (1:00:14)
Yeah, I think that's really important to consider again, across all of your training, all of your performance, like thinking about that diet as well.

Ollie Torr (1:00:22)
One person who I was really keen to get on the podcast was my wife, Maddie. The main reason that I creatine available to me in my house is because she uses it on a regular basis and has done for years.

As a coach and athlete herself, I've seen how she uses it both personally and professionally. So let's hear from Maddie on her experiences with supplementing creatine.

Ollie Torr (1:00:43)
So I think I first used creatine it would have been before I went to Yosemite to try and climb a freerider

And the reason I started using it then was that it was the first time I really did any superstructured S and C training. So I did a kind of 10 week program over that summer before I went and I tried creatine as a way to support that and see if it would help me recover. So yeah, I've used it since then kind of.

on and off, usually quite consistently over the winter period here in the UK, which is often when we're focused on training. And I've also used it during periods when I've been focused on weight training for, either rehabbing injuries or trying to strength train using weights when getting back from injury. So I think one of the interesting components was when you started doing it for Yosemite and you started S and C training, like I know that you'd actually put on quite a bit of muscle mass then.

Can you talk me through kind of what your shape and weight was like before and then after and how that changed your climbing? Yeah, it was, I don't know that the weight change happened only over that summer period when I was training, but it probably already increased a little bit through getting more interested in training, more interested in weight training, which is obviously what catalyzed sort of even signing up for this SNC program over the summer. But

my weight before any of that kind of SNC was around 55 kilos and I went up to around 60, which is then what I've stayed at through until this point. I'm generally around that. So probably gaining somewhere between kind of like four and five kilos over that period, which wasn't just that summer. So maybe call that kind of like a year really of training and weight training. And I definitely...

Well, my climbing really stepped up. I developed a lot of strength. I got a lot better across like this greater range of styles, like especially kind of steeper climbing. And that was generally upper body muscle mass, wasn't it? Because your lower body stayed relatively similar from dancing and then your upper body put on quite a lot of muscle mass around your shoulders, your upper back, your arms during that period. it wasn't the only reason, but that was...

important factor in that is fueling right and having that creatine to supercharge the training. Is that fair? Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair to say. I think I probably was also, you know, I'm not sure whether like, well, as with all like supplements, it kind of wasn't the creatine alone. I think the training was a really big part of like why I put on that muscle. But I felt like when I added the creatine in, I was able to handle

that weight training that I was doing well alongside maintaining my climbing. And I was quite pleasantly surprised at how well I maintained like my climbing level whilst also doing that volume of weight training, which prepared me really well for Yosemite because obviously it is like a very high volume place to go climbing. So it was great to have the quality in my climbing so that I felt confident in my climbing and like the technical aspect of it, but also to feel

really robust and to have built quite a lot of muscle. As you said, it was mainly around like, yeah, my upper body, I've already got quite a muscular lower body from years of dancing. So yeah, I definitely felt for that end goal. It was really great preparation, but even, know, like, know, with years on from that now, I still continue to use it because...

I've experienced like a number of injuries and what I've usually gone through is a process of using weight training as a way to, I suppose, initially rehabilitate, but then really build strength in my muscles so that, you know, when I go back to my climbing, can kind of do the climbing without, I can load the climbing without, load the muscles without injuring them. And when you're taking creatine at the moment, well, I obviously know this, being married,

It's five grams in the morning and your weight fluctuates by a couple of kilos depending, well just normally anyway, throughout your cycle but then with creatine it just stays on the slightly heavy side but you don't shunt up massively but then you still see the benefits. Yeah, yeah I think that's fair to say. I definitely, I would say, I would say my weight is pretty stable as a climber. I get

small fluctuation with my cycle. And I guess I could say that I noticed that in my climbing, but that could also just be attributed to the fact that when I'm sitting a bit heavier and bit bloated, I'm usually also on my period, maybe experiencing some cramps. So I wouldn't even necessarily attribute how I feel like on those couple of days in my cycle for climbing to the weight gain. But when it comes to the creatine, I suppose I'd almost say it barely changes my weight really. And it's...

Benefits definitely outweigh that small weight gain for me if it is there Do you notice that the creatine changes your feeling of bloatedness throughout your cycle because I know for me personally and from a lot of the people I've spoken to that Water retention bloated element in the stomach does make an impact if you're loading Creatine obviously throughout your cycle you go through that experience anyway, does it make it worse better or no effect?

I don't think there's any effect for me. I mean, I have no idea if there's any like research out there on that, but I think like when the bloating comes in time with my cycle, that feels like the only, it feels the same really, whether I'm taking the creatine or not, or I've definitely not thought about it rigorously enough to know if that had any impact. And I would say taking the creatine, the way I take it, so five grams a day, I don't.

notice any feelings of particular like bloating anyway. And so in terms of for you as an athlete you obviously bought into using it and tried throughout the year but you also work with pretty much all professional or high level athletes now. Who do you kind of recommend uses it? Is it female athletes, older athletes, it everyone? Kind of how are you actually prescribing it now? Yeah so firstly I'd say I don't

prescribe it to everyone. And that isn't necessarily because I don't think it would be beneficial to everyone, but when you are working with an athlete, you'll obviously know this. There's usually a bit of a threshold for how much information people can take on, how much change people can take on. And so whether I talk about it with people or not, it usually comes down to...

Firstly, how beneficial do I think it will be? If I really think it will be a standout benefit, then I will talk to them about it. Whereas if I think there's other really low hanging fruit and things that they can change, I'm probably gonna like try and focus their efforts on those things rather than maybe adding in another thing to remember. I think for some people that can add mental load and be a bit of like information overload. And then I also talk to it.

talk about it with people who are very well trained. So some people I work with have really thorough training history, know, they may even come to me and ask about it. So I'd say that's kind of my general approach to either talking about it with athletes or using it. So I'd say the people where I think, okay, I think this would be a really worthwhile thing for you is some, is actually mainly the older people that I work with.

And that partly comes down to the fact that also some of the female athletes I'm currently working with have, well, recently have children coming off the back of breastfeeding. And I will just say, like most things, probably with pregnancy and breastfeeding, there is just not a lot of information about its use, whether it's safe, whether you should use it. so I, and they have actually stopped breastfeeding now, but I suppose to get started with that conversation, it's just.

haven't got round to that yet. And again, when people are maybe fitting in training into this kind of new schedule as a parent, it may just be other low hanging fruit that you're looking to talk with them about. So the older athletes that I work with, I have definitely like recommended it to you. And I suppose program it in a bit more, especially like for phases of training, I'm like, yes, this is a phase we're doing a lot of weight training. Like I really want you to invest in some creatine, not a huge investment and you know, take it.

five grams a day, one person who I got to use it with, of slightly older guy, slightly taller, they did notice that they put on weight and we did cycle off it. And I still think that could have been beneficial to them, but what's interesting is when it's come back round to subsequent training phases that are like those heavier training phases.

they didn't want to use it as much. even though the weight then kind of like cycled off, think they personally, maybe that just affected their kind of confidence in training and I don't know, maybe psychologically as much as anything.

Ollie Torr (1:10:26)
So you also mentioned that you've used creatine with a lot of female athletes in the past. What's kind of been their responses as well? Has it matched your personal experiences or has it been quite different depending on the level of climber? Yeah, so in the past I've used it with female climbers that have really struggled to gain strength, really struggled to put on muscle mass, or that are also older, which may play into slower strength gains.

they have had a similar response to me. And I suppose the main thing that stands out is that they're, you know, before using it, we were obviously using a certain training approach. And I guess we had a good idea of like their response to that and their ability to handle it and progress. And then we added it in. And I suppose what's quite nice to see is the sort of change that we saw there and an improvement in their ability to handle.

I suppose training load and then also I suppose it's that slightly mid-range of like a relatively high volume of pretty high intensity training. So, which is often where maybe some weight training will sit, you know, around that kind of like 85 % or something like that. And one of the things we know with creatine or a lot of theories telling us is you need to have the right fueling behind that. Did you notice a reduced effects or negative effects with any female athletes that were

of a much lighter build or maybe if you've worked with anyone who generally speaking would be under fueling or suffered from reds. So when I talk to people about creating and using it, it usually comes along with a conversation of fueling more kind of thoroughly or like as a whole. So I would actually say that quite a few of the female athletes have worked in the past, worked within the past that I've used it.

I have before introducing Creatine, I've actually talked about making sure that their calorie intake is adequate because I suppose if I'm going through a bit of a process of elimination with a client and kind of starting at the more foundational level, I would like, you know, I like to look first and foremost as are you fueling enough? Okay, let's look at that. Let's try and increase that. Let's like think about some ideas.

And then, okay, well, let's try adding creatinine. So I would say like, that's the order of the conversation rather than necessarily like, you're not, maybe your gains are like a bit slower, we'll definitely add creatinine. Yeah, I think first and foremost, it's like looking at the training load, obviously making sure that you think that's like appropriate and then looking at like fueling that. Then a supplement, I suppose the word supplement says it all, then that kind of comes next.

Ollie Torr (1:13:15)
Myself and several of the guests so far have spoken about older athletes using creatine and it seemingly being better for them. So again, I wanted to invite my good friend Andy on to discuss his experiences and whether it matches the research and the theory about it being better for older athletes or whether that is just a myth.

Andy Cave (1:13:37)
I'm Andy Cave and I've been climbing for 41 years. And for me, I was always into like everything, every aspect of climbing, know, mountaineering, trad, pretty much all of that. And I suppose for certainly the first 20 years, I was really focused on

new routing in the Himalayas, Alaska, Patagonia, and then trying to repeat the hardest routes of the time in the Alps, Divine Providence and things like that. Alongside that, 10 years in I started working full time as a mountain guide as well. So those two things combined made it quite hard to, if you like, have any consistency for training for pure rock, although I was probably very fit and got the best out of what I had.

terms of my strength and stuff because I was just climbing so much if that makes sense. And I think back then I didn't really read point I was mainly into on-siting. Hard tried, I always bouldered funnily enough so that was a consistent thing whenever I was at home I would try and boulder just because I loved it really. And I think in 1990 that's when things changed where I came to Sheffield to university and started climbing on boards for the first time combining that with weights.

and I noticed a huge change just coming out of the spring in 1990 of having been on those boards meaning that then I could sort of maybe knock out a Font 7C on Pete line, No Mean Feet and 8888 plus route in between you know an 8000 metre peak or a Tri-D8 type of thing but I suppose I was quite young so maybe I was able to adapt to a bit more quickly

between those things if that makes sense. think as you get older maybe that's a little bit harder.

Ollie Torr (1:15:27)
So how old were you, what were you climbing when you focusing on mountaineering? And then when you said you were climbing font 7C, 8A, 8A plus routes with all the trail and mountaineering as well, how old were you then?

Andy Cave (1:15:40)
Yeah, that would have been, I suppose, late 20s. Okay, so yeah, I'm thinking. So I think that's when I was, you know, 8,000 meter P8A. That was approaching 30s, so like 28, 29 type of thing, if that makes sense. And.

Ollie Torr (1:16:02)
Yeah, because

I think when we met, you were, I think when I started first actually getting to know you properly, you were on Mecca, which is 8B +, so you've got a, you've had a pretty good linear progression still, which you still seem to be on the top of.

Andy Cave (1:16:18)
Yeah,

yeah, that's good point. I would say I I kind of squeezed without any structured training, just going on board, no fingerboard or anything, up to 8B at about 45, you know, quite quick 8A, not quite in a day, almost doing it next session sort of thing. Then I got a bit of an injury and I started structured training around 48 years old. And over those

two or three years doing structured training. Yeah, I got very close to Mecca, eight beat plus fella for last move, on site in seven seed plus in Europe. Yeah, so I suppose maybe that helped me stave off that aging process, if you know what mean, sort of the muscle wastage and all of that stuff. And then that's where I'm at at the moment. So a bit more structured training, which I sort of.

quite enjoying. think the main thing in terms of what changed for me on a personal level was having a family and not traveling away as much to the big mountains.

So that's been allowed me to be more consistent by sort of being at home a little bit, well, a lot more and focusing on, yeah, if I do go to the mountains and sort of shorter trips, a lot more stuff in Europe, sort of skiing and climbing there.

Ollie Torr (1:17:38)
Yeah, it's really interesting the way you've actually kind of led your climbing career because compared to theoretically what we should do physically, you know, in terms of strength being your biggest peak in your teenage years into early twenties and then your endurance stays so much longer. But I think in climbing, we're in a unique sport where, like you've found, by...

There's so much danger element if you do the mountain stuff and the trad, which effectively is a bit of a younger man's game, not having a family being pretty ballsy in that scenario. But it's actually quite nice that you've done it that way around and you've still seen progress by flipping it. you've got all the kind of, you've done so much scary, daring, out there stuff when, like you say, you're away for 10 weeks, you don't have a family to have to...

come back for and care for in the same way and then as you've got older you've got more and more into that strength side right down to the peak lime bouldering and you've still seen progression there. But like you said you've got more time to train for it and it's closer to home, you can spend time with your daughter and that's kind of a really nice way of flipping it on its head compared to the theoretical standard of sport.

Andy Cave (1:18:54)
Yeah,

yeah, no, that's interesting, isn't it? And I think there's the risk element, but there's also the time away element as well, sort not wanting to miss out and things like that. I suppose the positive side is I'm not looking over my shoulder thinking, I really want to do the North Face of the Iger, because I actually did that when I was 20 or something. I suppose it doesn't bother me, but it might bother someone else in terms of, but what if I'd have just focused on rock and got into red pointing and projecting earlier?

and the adaptations, what could I have seen there? But personally, that doesn't really bother me because yeah, I've had so many amazing times and obviously, you know, I've been to so many amazing countries and met so many amazing people. So I'm happy with that. But you're right, yeah. I think to be honest though, you can't fight the aging process. Like I know you're talking about me sort of making gains for sure, but it doesn't get any easier. I think that's...

I mean, I think, sarcopenia muscle-waste, does that start at 40? I'm well into that. If it starts at 40, go blind me. But I think consistency is key. And I think you and I had a chat previously about non-negotiables in your training. And I think that is so important. whenever you get busy or there's other things going on, it's like, but what should I?

Ollie Torr (1:20:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy Cave (1:20:20)
try and focus on and do so for me at the moment that I'll be at the school room later is those board sessions and turning up fresh for those, the finger boarding and the weights and I think not really a massive time commitment if you focus on the quality. I think I've got better at resting as well. I think I was terrible at resting historically. I had so much energy which is probably why I need to go to the Malay.

like letting the whip it off the lead sort of thing. But I think with age, you slow down anyway and so maybe that's a good thing. I've only got so much energy, so what am I gonna do with that energy?

Ollie Torr (1:20:59)
Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the questions I've been really keen to ask you is we briefly spoke about you using creatine in the past. And obviously I'm kind of very interested in that. So can you kind of describe sort of how you used it in the past and when you used it?

Andy Cave (1:21:18)
Yeah.

would say I used it three or four times when I say times, I mean for a period, through a winter training phase. One time I extended it beyond that. I'm actually taking it again now. I don't think, can't remember if I took it last winter. I was very anti it to start with. sort of like years ago read about it, about runners using it and sort of links to like maybe problems with kidneys and things like that.

I'll stay clear of that but I don't think that was that that stuff about problems was like maybe unfounded. So first time I took it I think I just took it for a winter the second time I took it I extended it into the season even into a sports climbing trip to Spain and then currently I started yeah in December and I'm still taking it and I haven't decided whether I'll stick with it or not in the climbing phase.

If I'm climbing just low key around the peak, know, that sort of like minute of effort type of thing often on a lot of these hard bouldery sport routes, I probably just keep taking it. This time I think in the past I've done the loading phase. This time I've just sort of micro-dosed, just fed it in, end of November into December. On every occasion, what I personally noticed is that my ability to recover is amazing. By that I mean I can go and...

back to myself on boards and weights and normally I have a big reaction to that, the doms the day after all, know, the day after that and then I wake up and I'm like, did I train yesterday? Quite weird. So I suppose there's a risk in that in that you might want to go back in for more training and not rest properly. So for me, that's the single biggest change and I suppose that allows me to sort of have more consistency, turn up not tired. Maybe I'm not.

tired in my work, in my day job if you like as well because I physically feel recovered. It's just a very personal take on it. In terms of negatives I think there's one time where I maybe got the dosage wrong and I was doing a lot of finger boarding and I had like this really swollen forearm one time at night and then on a route in Spain I part way up like a long classic Spanish.

sport route, quite crimpy in middle section, I just felt like really almost overly pumped but I think I had the dosage wrong, I think I was like maybe taking too much or something. Whereas now I just drip it in, normally take it in the morning with water. I am really bad at hydrating generally, I can get away with not drinking a lot of water but with creating like you have to. So I think that's the key thing, just be really disciplined, make sure you drink you.

whatever, two litres. In terms of weight, people talk about the excess weight, I'm such a light climber anyway, although I have got a little bit heavier the last few years, it's almost like I've got a new weight. I like to think it's all muscle, I'm not sure it is. But I think for me, like one kilo, one and a half kilo of excess, extra weight if I jumped on the scales. But I just feel stronger on the board.

So for me it's a benefit thing. So I've not really had any negative experiences from it. Like I say, the biggest decision is like, should I continue this or should I tail off to lose weight or if I'm worried about that pump feeling. But not really had that pump feeling now that I've been doing my whatever five rounds a day or whatever it is.

Ollie Torr (1:25:11)
So

you're doing the micro dosing, you're looking at 5 grams and then the loading you are looking at 10 to 15? Is that what you were thinking?

Andy Cave (1:25:18)
I it was, wasn't it?

Was it 10 to 15 or maybe more, like 20 for that five, six day period? Yeah, it depends on your body weight, doesn't it? Yeah, I'm around that kind of 67 to 69K, probably near a 17 hour, sort of winter doing a few weights.

bit of home cooking, yeah.

Ollie Torr (1:25:38)
And

you mentioned something really interesting there, was that sort of psychological awareness and freshness. And that is something that people are starting to research a lot more with creatine in terms of your mental acumen and focus. And I think there's evidence to say 10 grams and more is good for your brain health. Again, there's research being done in this area, but...

What you've just highlighted there is actually a really nice way of flipping that on its head and saying, well, actually, I'm just more recovered from the physical work. So psychologically, I'm more fresh as well. Like I just have more energy. Have you noticed a change in focus and stuff beyond just the general recovery?

Andy Cave (1:26:26)
Yeah, I mean, it's very personal isn't it, anecdotal? Yeah, I mean, for me, would say yes. Hard to give you concrete specific stuff around that. I'm really interested in what you've just been talking about and bumped into that. It's sure and I think it works for you down at the school room where we got chatting about that. It's quite interesting. So yeah, hopefully I'm lucky in terms of that.

cognitive side. Yeah. But just personally, yeah, like, whether it's linked to that fact that I'm less tired, you know, who knows?

Ollie Torr (1:27:08)
Is it worth people experimenting with? Because, I mean, you know an older athlete that I worked with us who were trying to get to experiment with creatine. And I think for me personally, it's an interesting experiment for most people to try. Is it something that you would recommend to your friends and other climbers?

Andy Cave (1:27:30)
Definitely, I would, it's hard for me, you know, it's not like a, pyramid selling or anything, but it's a personal choice.

what are the negatives in it really. I don't know, I wouldn't want to suggest it to somebody who had some sort of illness from it or something like that, some effect later down the line. But me personally, I'm happy with the decision and I'm a bit squeamish with things like that as well. I'm quite careful in terms of what I eat and things. So I think for me it's been a benefit. But of course you've got to be putting the graft in as well. It's not like some magic bullet.

and you've got to sort of be getting the rest in. think you've got to be eating properly, you know, so protein is just as important. Caffeine sometimes if I'm struggling, you know, if I go to train and I'm like, I want to train in theory, I've had a day off, but I like a smash of coffee. But that's interesting, actually. I've not felt like that. I'm just reflecting. So when I started this training cycle coming from indoors, sorry, outdoors to indoors.

of November I was struggling and I was was sneaking in extra coffees in Sheffield before I trained having already had one at home I was like oh this is this is not going great I've only just started just thinking about that I'm not doing that now I'm just I'm having me one coffee I'm good to go so maybe that's the anecdotal proof that I'm just recovering a lot better and getting you know able to push on more.

makes sense so yeah why I mean look it's a personal choice but what I would say is if you're unsure why not try it in the winter training block for like say you know three months

try and be cognitive of those changes. Do I feel fresher? Am I making gains? So on and so forth. Put a bit of weight on but I'm pulling better. I don't know, it'd be interesting, wouldn't it be a really interesting study to do with a bunch of old gits, different genders, to see over a winter, say three months, what the changes were.

don't know how you measure it and what have you, in a scientific way.

Ollie Torr (1:29:50)
think for me, and this is why I wanted to do this podcast, it's so, the anecdotal stuff in climbing is so powerful still in terms of qualitative interview style research in my eyes is equal to the collection of larger data sets because I would never.

ask you as someone with so much sight for climbing to sacrifice your potential performance to do a protocol that I've suggested that five other people are doing. But it is quite nice to have these conversations because we end up getting the same results as in I can see what numbers you're doing, we can talk about the performance before and after and compare that to previous years but obviously there's so many variations in there.

Yeah, unless you're the, like you said, you're the creative baron of Sheffield actually, you've got, it's a pyramid scheme, we've all bought into it.

Andy Cave (1:30:48)
Yeah, I the other point is, I don't know, yeah, like if you do a training block in the summer, so if you're a boulderer, you've got maybe two big training blocks, would you do it in both of those? Would you keep it running through? If you did a base phase in the summer, would you use it? Hard to say. I think this time I'll just keep using it. I'm a really skinny build.

there's no doubt that you get to my age though it is hard to keep the muscle on so why not just keep that micro dosing and just keep going unless I have some adverse effects which I'm not anticipating that.

Ollie Torr (1:31:34)
And just to last point before we close up on this, are you a meat eater? Do you have much red meat in your diet?

Andy Cave (1:31:41)
Yeah, it's a good one. Yes, but we've cut back on red meat, I would say. Maybe we're eating too much. Probably eat red meat twice a week.

like a Sunday roast to be fair and then we'd probably have something else but we yeah I would I would say that's about it sometimes we might have just red meat once a week

Ollie Torr (1:32:07)
What about flash pump? We hear about it being talked about with creatine. What is it? Does it actually exist?

Edward Gibson-Smith (1:32:13)
Yes, so it is something that is spoke by anecdotally quite a lot. hear quite a lot of reports online. I've had feedback from some athletes that have used it in the past and have experienced this effect. you know, whilst we don't have studies that necessarily demonstrate this, because let's face it, we've pretty much only got my own study on creatine so far. One thing I will say as a side note is that we didn't have any athletes experience flash pump on my particular study, whether or not that

protocol was quite short duration, or was the training status of the athletes, or whether it's because we're dealing with quite a small number of athletes, so only 24 in total. That's kind of besides the point, but we hear enough about it for people to start speculating, what is this all about essentially? And I've spent a bit of time thinking about this, and I think mechanistically, we do have a bit of an explanation.

The way I see it is that we've got some research that demonstrates improved blood flow or vascular responsiveness with creating supplementation. And there's two proposed complementary mechanisms which can essentially lead to an increase in nitric oxide production. So nitric oxide is kind of like a signaling molecule that is responsible for vasodilation or the widening of our blood vessels and therefore actually enhancing blood flow.

So the first mechanism is via the upregulation of the enzyme, which is called endothelial nitric oxide synthase. And that's the enzyme responsible, as you can probably guess by the name, for producing nitric oxide. And the second is via an increase in arginine availability. So arginine, as I mentioned, is a precursor to the production of, or the endogenous production of creatine in the body.

It's also a precursor to nitric oxide. So if we're creatine as a supplement via exogenous sources, we are technically sparing some of our body's arginine availability for the purpose of nitric oxide production. So less reliance on endogenous creatine production, which would otherwise end up using up some of our arginine. Now, for most people, an increase in blood flow or vascular responsiveness

or even indeed cell volumization is likely beneficial. However, if we combine this with the increased intramuscular water retention, then there's going to be a higher risk of there being excessive compartment pressure. Compartment pressure is what it sounds like and can be particularly problematic in the tight kind of fascial compartments in the forearms. And you don't have to be an expert in

know, physiology or anatomy to gain an appreciation that the forearms themselves, especially if you're a lean individual and you can actually palpate the forearms, you can pinch at the skin and pinch at the tissue, like they're quite tight. There's not a lot of give there. You can almost describe them as being non-compliant really, comparing it with other compartments that house the muscle bellies. And so it's got quite a limited capacity to expand. So,

genetics will ultimately dictate the pliability of these tissues. And like I said, it's not likely to be an issue for most, but for some people, the increase in the muscle volume, the local kind of exertional and also the potentially creating dependent enhanced blood flow. And then finally, the reduced venous return during prolonged contractions. So what I mean by that is when we contract our muscles hard, we are actually preventing the return flow of blood.

that can lead to the discomfort that people describe as the flash pump and almost this paradoxical effect on performance, like a reduced performance where you'd expect that to be an enhanced performance. So it would kind of like be wearing a blood flow restriction cuff, but internally and obviously entirely inadvertently as well. So does that kind

Ollie Torr (1:36:24)
So

So in terms of what happens when you are supplementing creatine is your muscles are going to be filling with a little bit more water and then it's going to be expanding the pressure within the muscle itself. And as part of that, when you're contracting, because your blood cells and your blood vessels are closing down and shutting and there's no delivery, which is very normal in contraction. So you're not getting that venous return when you're trying hard. So that repetition.

hold after hold is building pressure, building pressure. And then the pump feels like it's the same kind of blood pump that you get after a really long route, but actually it's just been exacerbated by the water in the system. Which is really interesting actually, because I know a lot of bikers, there's now new surgery, isn't there, in Spain. I don't recommend anyone does this to remove the fascia from the forearm to allow it to expand further. And like you said,

That's the genetic component we're gifted with. So some people will have fascia which allows their muscle to expand a bit more when they have that extra water in from creatine and some white. So that's really interesting. That is the mechanism or is it a theoretical mechanism or is it the mechanism for flash pump?

Edward Gibson-Smith (1:37:39)
Yeah, we don't. Yeah, so

we don't know. don't don't believe it's been it's been studied even in the context of, you know, hand grip or other kind of performance metrics involving the forearm specifically. But yeah, we know that compartment syndrome occurs, as you said, cyclists are people that will will suffer from that. Well, there'll be a higher prevalence within a group of individuals who sustain grip for long periods of time, basically. Another one is people who do racing drivers.

So people who cart to race cars. I actually used to work with a British super bike rider with their nutrition and they actually had the surgery as well while we were working together because they were experiencing it as well. But yeah, it's likely as I said, kind of like a combination of both the increase in the intracellular pressure or intramuscular water retention, but also the potential.

creating mediated improvements in blood flow as well. So you've got that kind of twofold effect. I mean, finally, if you were going to speculate even further, and if you were going to, you know, maybe assume that there was a positive effect of creating on the actual performance of the muscle, then you could argue that could an individual sustain a contraction longer than they might have done normally. So are they resting on hold they wouldn't have rested on before, or are they taking longer between

hold transitions because they now can, even if it's only very subtle, it might be enough just to influence the Venus return that increases or pushes it beyond that threshold of tolerance. again, think whilst it's purely theoretical at this stage, I can't imagine really that being too far off the mark.

Ollie Torr (1:39:27)
That matches the theory that I've had in terms of the ability to sustain efforts, try a bit harder and not necessarily understand the new contractile level that an athlete needs to do when they've started supplementing something new. They start pulling harder a bit longer and it's obviously all these things are, everything's good going into the system and going into that forearm, but the body's not quite used to dealing with those effects. It's like having much better energy systems, but you've not got the lactate buffering.

the blood systems to get rid of any of it. So yeah there's always a give and take with better performance isn't there and it sounds like if your body can cope with the removal or the management of those benefits then it's good but sometimes if your genetics don't allow that then it might be negative for very pumpy style of climbing.

Edward Gibson-Smith (1:40:17)
Yeah.

And I mean, just as a kind of final thing, we've talked about the suitability of creating supplementation, like, you know, is the scenarios where you would not recommend it or you would withdraw its use? And I guess it's when it's not given you the effect that the person is looking for. Like if a person is looking to enhance their overall strength and power across multiple muscle groups, then the likelihood is that they're going to see the benefit at least somewhere, even if it's not hugely perceivable.

In one area, it might be that they see some enhancement in the numbers elsewhere. And that's fine, obviously, for that person. If a person is taking creatine to solely enhance the performance of the forearms and they get either an adverse effect or they don't see the effect on finger strength capacity that they were hoping for, then they are more likely then to view any changes in weight as being adverse. So it's kind of like...

an individual who just wants to get stronger generally. And it's like, okay, I want to increase my absolute strength. I want to increase my squat performance, the bench performance, my pulling performance and so on. Like they're to be less concerned about an increase in overall body weight of one and a half kilos. So it really depends on, like I said, that person's actual specific training or performance goals and how well then does creating supplementation align with that.

And the short answer is because of the huge variation in individual variation, in both the responsiveness to creatine on the whole, in terms of its effects on specific muscle groups, again, is going to be different.

as well. You know, in the limited research that we have in a climbing context, it ultimately is going to come down to trial and error. So, you know, if a person says to me, you think I should try this? I say, well, okay, these are the mechanisms. This is where it might have an influence or benefit you. This is what my recommended protocol is for, you know, for taking creatine. And, you know, this is how you should potentially monitor the performance benefit.

And if they go away and they see the change that they wanted to change, then great. And if not, then yeah, maybe come back to another time or maybe not at all.

Ollie Torr (1:42:33)
effect. Sounds like that's a great place to finish it up. If you've got one more minute actually, what is your recommended protocol?

Edward Gibson-Smith (1:42:44)
Yeah, so I generally recommend that people take five grams of creatine a day with a carbohydrate rich meal, preferably, but it's not essential. And also the timing of the intake is not essential either. again, that really depends on whether or not the person has any gastrointestinal upset, which is very rare, I must say. I could probably count on a few fingers the number of people that have had a

ever had any adverse effects of creatine across the, I don't know, 100 or so people or more maybe that have taken it under my supervision. Bear in mind that I used to work also in professional football. you you say to a team of athletes, you know, who takes creatine, who doesn't, and you you might get another 10 people that are like, oh, okay, I don't currently, but I might try this other thing.

The only other kind of consideration I have really in terms of long-term use is, let's say for example, you've got a boulder who, know, nine months of the year is more than happy carrying additional water retention and additional muscle mass and is more perhaps strength and power focused in their training. But for example, they're like, okay, well, I've got this sport climbing trip coming up, you know, and there might be

placing more emphasis on their kind of strength to weight aspect of their performance as opposed to kind of absolute strength and perform, sorry, strength and power. So that might be a consideration then. Well, okay, do you want to drop the creatine, see what impact that has on your weight, see how that makes you feel? Again, you know, I've already covered the fact that it's subtle, but for some people it might be enough for it to make a difference.

As a practitioner, you've got to be very open to an individual's experiences. It's all well and good having the scientific knowledge. It's all well and good having years of experience of use and working with lots of different people. But at the end of the day, each individual is unique in both their response and importantly, and really importantly, their own perception as well can't be dismissed. So if a person thinks that that one and a half kilos reduction in weight is truly important to them and they are

reducing their weight in a very kind of healthy, very low risk manner, then by all means, drop creatine from the routine.

Ollie Torr (1:45:16)
Thank you very much Ed.

Ollie Torr (1:45:18)
So there you have it. If you made it this far, I hope you really enjoyed the episode and you took a lot away from it. So to finish and kind of conclude with my personal thoughts as a climber and a coach, I guess I'll give you kind of my advice I give to the clients I work with. So generally speaking,

If you're about to go into a performance phase, and particularly as a route climber, you're thinking about experimenting with creating, I would hold off just for now and see how you adapt to it in a training phase. Generally speaking, you don't want to change anything up too much going into a performance phase, just because it might have an adverse effect or change things that you're not prepared for when you've worked really hard towards that performance. However, if you're going into a training phase or you're not currently looking to peak, or if you're just training to maintain,

I would generally recommend using it. I'd say if you're a more muscular person, just having five grams a day seemingly seems to make quite a difference to myself and to the athletes I've worked with. I tend to have it with my breakfast in the morning with a carbohydrate drink or carbohydrates in your breakfast. If you tend to fast in the morning or you just have coffee, I would say just wait until around lunchtime.

If you're a lower muscle mass athlete, then I would generally say maybe two times five grams a day. So again, maybe in the morning and maybe just after training was another good time. with like some kind of food after your training session tends to work really well. I've seen really good results from both of those methods. But generally speaking, I would only have 10 grams a day if I was a lower muscle mass person, just because of the additional mass that you could put on with water weight with a higher body mass anyway.

And generally speaking, it means that you'll be performing in kind of a normal state without any extra mass that you might not need in that performance phase. Again, that's totally up to you.

Whether you see a big weight increase or not, I would try cycling off creatine for two to three weeks either prior to a performance phase or as a test run in the middle of a training phase. It just helps you understand how it affects your body a lot more.

So one of the things I used to do with athletes was they would cycle on creating for around six weeks. Then they'll take around two to three weeks off and see how it changed their body weight. Do they get rid of that water weight really easily? And are they able to perform particularly for sport climbers? And in that two to three weeks, I'd make sure you worked that power endurance elements of your forearms. So sustained efforts just to make sure that any of the potential things around pump and being trained and you know where your body stands. Like we talked about

earlier there is a potential chance for this flash pump but generally speaking I don't think most people suffer from it but it's always worth finding out you don't want to commit to a trip and find out halfway through that your body's kind of not quite adapted to the creating in the way you wanted to.

For me personally, I was taking creatine at the end of last year when I was trying a long boulder problem. It was extremely hard for me and I felt really good on it. I was one of the heaviest I've been. But because of the type of problem, hugging in a roof on grit, it didn't really matter too much and it was okay for my fingers. However, I did start to notice my performance elsewhere on a board or on any other climbing was starting to get affected by my fingers struggling with the extra weight. I put on three kilos. And that's just something that

that

I could adapt to, but for me personally, it was something that would start to stress my fingers a bit more. I did cycle off it, and I started noticing my performance on my project starting to reduce at the end of the climb. So I was really struggling to execute the last sort of from 30 seconds onwards. However, there's technical elements to that. It wasn't just about creating those conditions problems to go with.

So it was an interesting observation for me. And because of a trip coming up and because of the conditions have been bad here, I'm going to Yosemite in I think seven weeks time. I've actually gone back on creatine to support my training. I find that I train a lot better. I feel more mentally aware at work around training if I'm taking creatine. I do have to watch my weight. I'm someone who puts on weight quite easily, particularly muscle and fat mass to be honest. So I've been keeping an eye on that as well.

After Yosemite, I'll probably make a decision then. If I'm going into the sports season in the summer, I might not bother with creating because I'm not doing enough training to justify it. And generally speaking, every time I work with an athlete, I'll talk to them individually about trying it with them and seeing what their goals are. But like I before, it's always worth having a play with in the training phase and you'll be able to stop it pretty quickly and see the reverse effects as well.

you enjoyed the episode. There's a lot of detail in there, and hopefully this remains a good resource for climbers out there on Creatine Thanks for listening, and see you soon.