Prove it worked

What your result means

A real change is a week-eight result better than your best day-one try by more than the gap between your two day-one tries. Creatine and your training did that together.

Inside your noise means the test can't tell creatine from a good or bad day. That's a fair result after eight weeks of training, and it's more likely if you already ate a lot of meat or fish, since your stores started closer to full.

Down by more than your noise usually means the day was off. Sleep, the time of day and a hard session in the last 48 hours all move these tests.

What to do next

1. If it went up, keep going. 3 to 5 g a day, every day, and test again in a few months.
2. If it didn't, check three things. That you trained two or three days a week, that you took it daily, and that it's been at least eight weeks. How to tell if it worked goes through each one.
3. If you trained and nothing moved, stopping is fine. Your stores drift back to where food keeps them in about a month, and foods high in creatine has how far meat and fish get you.

The tests

Push-ups. One unbroken set, chest close to the floor, arms straight at the top. From your toes or your knees, the same both times.

Dead hang. Straight arms, both hands, no straps. Time from feet off the floor until a hand lets go.

Plank. Forearms and toes, body straight. Time until your hips drop.

The same time of day, the same warm-up, and not within 48 hours of a hard session for those muscles. These are strength.guide's definitions, so the two sites agree.

The noise rule

Your noise is the gap between your two day-one tries, a few days apart. At week eight, compare your result with the better of the two. A change bigger than your noise is a real change. The rule is ours, and it's simple on purpose: it asks your own body how much a test wobbles from one day to the next.

What a real change means

Training moves these tests too. In lifting trials, strength rose 20% with creatine against 12% with training alone, and reps at the same weight 26% against 12%, so creatine's share is the gap between those. Across 35 trials, lean mass rose 1.1 kg more with creatine and lifting than lifting alone. Eight weeks with no change and a training log that shows you trained is a fair result too.

Where your number stands

The bands are strength.guide's. Dead hang: under 20 seconds Building, 20 to 45 Fair, 45 to 60 Good, over 60 Strong. Plank: under 30 seconds Building, 30 to 60 Fair, 60 to 120 Good, longer Strong. These are Gyroscope's practical bands, since no study has published hang times by age. Push-ups go by age and sex on the Canadian table that ACSM's guidelines reprint, men from the toes and women from the knees:

These bands are typical ranges. The Gyroscope app personalizes yours.

The retest date

Day one plus 56 days, week eight. Full stores take 6 to 28 days depending on the path, and the extra reps build on top of that, so eight weeks gives the change room to show. The calendar button makes the file in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.