Dose and timing

What happens when you stop taking creatine?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20264 sources

Your muscle creatine drifts back to where it started over about a month, and the water that came with it goes too. It doesn’t drop below your starting level, and there’s no crash. You lose the top-up, and with it the extra rep it gave you.

People worry about stopping for a few reasons. Some have heard that taking creatine makes your body stop making its own, so quitting leaves you worse off than before. Some expect to lose their gains overnight. And plenty of gym advice says you should cycle off every few months anyway, which makes stopping sound like something your body needs.

What happens to your stores

The 1996 trial in Nottingham measured it. After loading 31 men’s muscles to about 20% above their starting level, the researchers had one group stop completely. Their muscle creatine fell gradually, and 30 days after their last dose it was back where it began. During that month, the creatinine in their urine stayed raised, which is the extra creatine breaking down and leaving.

The International Society of Sports Nutrition puts the return at 4 to 6 weeks. It also says no study has found muscle creatine falling below where it started after people stop, which means the body doesn’t switch off its own supply for good.

The chart shows someone who starts on 3 to 5 g a day on Monday, November 16 and stops at week eight. The rise and the fall are measured at their ends, about 28 days up and about 30 days down, and the shape in between is drawn by us.

Why it stops at your starting line

Your liver and kidneys never stopped making creatine while you took the scoop, and food never stopped bringing it in. Those two keep your stores at about three quarters full on a mixed diet, which is where you began. It’s like a pond fed by a spring. Pour in extra and the level rises, stop pouring and it settles back to where the spring holds it.

What you’ll notice

• The scale. The water creatine pulled into your muscles was there because the creatine was. In a 2003 trial, body water rose 2.04 L over four weeks on creatine. Expect some of the weight you gained early on to drift off as your stores empty.
• Your training. The extra rep or two on hard sets fades as the reserve fuel drops back. Muscle you built still needs training to keep.
• Blood tests. Creatinine follows your stores down over weeks, so a few days off won’t clear it. See stopping before a blood test.

Starting again works exactly like the first time, about 28 days to full on 3 to 5 g a day, or 6 days if you load.