Dose and timing

Should I take creatine on rest days?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20264 sources

Yes, at the same dose. About 1 to 2% of the creatine in your muscles breaks down every day whether you trained or not, and the scoop replaces it. Skipping rest days just makes your stores fill more slowly and drain a little between sessions.

It’s easy to think of creatine like a pre-workout drink, something you take for the session in front of you. On that logic a rest day is a day off from the tub too, and saving a scoop on Sundays seems thrifty.

Your stores leak a little every day

Creatine sits in your muscles, about 95% of all you have, and a small share of it turns into creatinine every day and leaves in your urine. The International Society of Sports Nutrition puts that at about 1 to 2% of what’s stored, so your body needs about 1 to 3 g a day just to stay where it is. On a normal diet, food covers about half of that, and your liver and kidneys make the rest.

That breakdown runs on its own clock. It doesn’t pause because you didn’t train. Your muscle stores are like a bucket with a slow, steady leak, and the leak runs on rest days too.

The scoop is what lifts the water line above where food and your own body keep it. Miss it on rest days and you’re topping up four or five days a week against a leak that runs seven.

How little it takes to stay full

The amount needed to hold full stores is small. In the 1996 trial that set the usual dose, men who loaded to full kept their muscle creatine up for another 30 days on just 2 g a day. When they stopped completely, it drifted back to where it started over those same 30 days.

That’s also why one missed day barely makes a difference. Stores take about a month to fall back, so forgetting a scoop now and then costs you very little. Don’t double up the next day to make up for it, since single doses over 10 g are the ones that upset stomachs. In a 2008 trial of 59 soccer players, one 10 g dose a day caused diarrhea in 56% of them.

What the trials did

The trials behind the usual dose gave creatine every day, training days and rest days alike. In the 2013 study that compared taking it before and after workouts, 19 bodybuilders trained five days a week and took their 5 g on the two rest days whenever it suited them. The dates on our tools, like full in 6 days on loading or 28 days on 3 g a day, assume you take it daily.

If you’d like your tub to last longer, take less each day instead of skipping days. 3 g a day filled stores in 28 days in the 1996 trial, and it makes a tub last two thirds longer than 5 g a day.