Creatine Monohydrate: The Daily Protocol, Graded
Take 3 to 5 g of plain creatine monohydrate every day, including rest days. On a normal diet your muscle stores sit only about 60 to 80 percent full, and supplementing raises muscle creatine and phosphocreatine by about 20 to 40 percent. Loading is optional, not required: roughly 0.3 g/kg a day for 5 to 7 days is simply the fastest route to the same saturation that 3 to 5 g a day reaches in 3 to 4 weeks. The strength and power evidence is strong. The memory evidence is contested and sits in older adults, not young ones. Educational only, not medical advice.
Take 3 to 5 g of plain creatine monohydrate 3 to 5 g a day, every day, including rest days. Larger athletes and people carrying more muscle may need 5 to 10 g a day to hold the same saturation. Timing did not distinguish the trials; consistency did. Mix it into any drink you already have.
This is the maintenance dose the ISSN position stand identifies as enough to reach and then hold saturated muscle stores, and it is the dose almost every positive trial has used.
Skip the loading phase unless you actually want saturation this week Loading is about 0.3 g/kg a day for 5 to 7 days, split into 4 smaller doses across the day, then straight back down to 3 to 5 g a day. It gets you in a week to the same place 3 to 5 g a day reaches in 3 to 4 weeks, and nothing beyond that.
The ISSN position stand is explicit that loading is optional. Its only advantage is speed, so it earns its place if you have a competition in a fortnight and not otherwise. Splitting the dose is what keeps it tolerable.
Expect saturation in 3 to 4 weeks, and expect the scale to move first Without loading, give it a full 3 to 4 weeks before you judge anything. Early scale weight of roughly 1 to 2 kg is water drawn into the muscle, not fat, and it is the expected sign that your stores are filling.
In direct muscle biopsies, 3 g a day for 28 days produced about a 20 percent rise in muscle total creatine, matching what 20 g a day reached in 6 days. Same destination, slower road.
Treat a missed day as a missed day, not a reset Keep taking it on rest days, holidays and deload weeks. If you stop entirely, muscle stores take 4 to 6 weeks to drift back toward baseline, so there is no need to re-load after a gap of a few days.
Washout is slow. The saturation you spent 3 to 4 weeks building does not disappear over a long weekend, and re-loading after a short break buys you nothing.
Evidence check, strength and power: this is the part that is genuinely settled This is what creatine monohydrate is actually for. In the ISSN position stand's own words, creatine monohydrate is "the most effective nutritional supplement available for increasing high-intensity exercise capacity and lean mass" during training, and monohydrate is the form that entire evidence base was built on.
Decades of randomized trials, plus direct biopsy measurement of the mechanism behind them. Judged against the rest of the supplement aisle, this is an unusually strong evidence base rather than a promising one.
Evidence check, memory: contested in the literature, and concentrated in older adults A meta-analysis of randomized trials in healthy people (10 trials, 8 of them pooled) found the memory benefit concentrated in adults aged 66 to 76 and essentially absent in people aged 11 to 31. Dose across the 2.2 to 20 g a day range did not influence the findings, and neither did duration, so taking more will not buy you the effect.
Two things have to travel together here. The age split, which means this is not a memory supplement for a 25-year-old on the current evidence. And the dispute: a letter in the same journal argued the analysis double-counted trials, and the authors published a reply. We are pointing you at an open argument, not a settled result.
Evidence check, sleep deprivation: interesting, preliminary, and not part of the daily protocol A single 0.35 g/kg dose taken across 21 hours without sleep held processing speed 16 to 29 percent better than placebo in 15 people. A follow-up using 0.2 g/kg in 29 people found improvement of up to 12 percent. Both used one large dose, far above the 3 to 5 g daily maintenance, and neither is a reason to change what you take every day.
Two small trials totalling 44 people. That is a real signal worth watching rather than an established use, and a single dose that size is exactly where nausea and digestive discomfort show up.
Creatine is stored in muscle as free creatine and phosphocreatine, the system that resupplies ATP during short, hard efforts.
View sources
International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine (Kreider et al., JISSN, 2017)
Muscle creatine loading in men (Hultman et al., Journal of Applied Physiology, 1996)
Effects of creatine supplementation on memory in healthy individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (Prokopidis et al., Nutrition Reviews, 2023)
Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation (Gordji-Nejad et al., Scientific Reports, 2024)
Follow-up randomized trial of a single 0.2 g/kg creatine dose during sleep deprivation (Nutrients, 2026;18(8):1192)
Not medical advice. This page is for education only and is not a substitute for professional medical care. Consult a qualified clinician before changing your health routine.
Editorial disclosure. This protocol is written and fact-checked by the YourProtocol editorial team directly from the primary sources cited below; it is not written or reviewed by any outside expert.
Is this for you
- Anyone training hard who wants the dose and the routine right rather than the marketing
- People trying to work out whether they need a loading phase at all
- Anyone sold creatine as a memory or brain supplement who wants the honest grade on that specific claim
- Beginners: this is one of the cheapest and best-evidenced supplements there is
Cautions
- Educational only, not medical advice. Speak to your doctor before starting any supplement, particularly if you have kidney disease or take regular medication.
- Early weight gain of roughly 1 to 2 kg is water drawn into muscle, not fat. If added scale weight is a problem for your sport or your weight class, factor it in before you start.
- Loading doses are where stomach upset and loose stools turn up. Splitting the dose across the day, or skipping loading entirely, largely avoids it.
- The memory finding is contested: a letter in the same journal argued the meta-analysis double-counted trials, and the authors replied. Treat it as an open argument, and note the benefit sat in adults aged 66 to 76 and was essentially absent in people aged 11 to 31.
- The sleep-deprivation results are two small trials totalling 44 people, using single doses far above the daily maintenance dose. Not an established use, and not something to build a routine on.
- Buy plain creatine monohydrate that has been third-party tested. Supplements are not pre-approved for safety or purity before sale, so the testing is doing real work.
- If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or under 18, talk to your doctor before starting creatine; the trials this page cites were run in adults.
Common questions
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