This is the second time i\'m using creatine. First time i used it was about four years ago, and I
used it for about two months. I got great results, so I figured I\'d give it another whirl now that I\'m back
in the gym after a three year layoff.
I\'ve been back in the gym for three months, and have been on a creatine
cycle for about 2 of those months. The creatine I\'ve been using has been the GNC Creadrive, which is a
carb/creatine mix with Taurine. I\'ve been taking one serving per day, which equals approximately 5 grams of
creatine per day, although on some days, I have taken two servings. I\'ve also been taking one serving of EAS
Betagen once per day, which contains an additional 2.5 grams of creatine as well as 1 gram of HMB and 2 grams of
glutamine. A daily multi-vitamin (Sam\'s Club) has also been in the rotation.
For the past month I\'ve also
been taking a whey protein (GNC\'s \"100% Whey\", which has 20 grams of protein per serving) supplement twice
per day. I\'ve also just finished a one month cycle of NO2, which I do not plan on continuing as I did not notice
any positive effects with this particular product.
Withing the last two weeks I\'ve added 500 mg of HMB (GNC)
twice per day, and within the last week, I\'ve been taking 2 grams of CLA per day (Twin Labs CLA Fuel).
Food
consumption during the day is excellent, with no alcohol, plenty of lean meats (turkey, tuna, chicken, beef, eggs),
fresh vegetables from my garden, etc.
Gains have been excellent, with very noticeable increases in definition,
size and strength, while lowering bodyfat.
I\'ve got what appears to be about two weeks left of the creatine,
and once it\'s gone, I\'ll go on a one month off cycle so that I don\'t crap out my kidneys one morning. Once
I\'m off the creatine, I plan on adding an additional 5 to 10 grams of glutamine (GNC Mega Glutamine) per day. I
also will add ZMA supplement (Cytodyne Tech Cyclo Z-Mass, which also has a \"testrobolic blend\" which claims to
increase testosterone production within the body) and a hemiliodator (Met-Rx O2FX) even though the NO2 I used
previously had no noticeable effect. (The concept behind hemiliodation seems to have some valid points.)
My
questions are:
1. Is a month too long or too short for an \"off-cycle\" of the creatine? Can I get away
with less as I really enjoy the massive pump I get while working out, as well as the energy and strength
increases?
2. Can I/Should I continue taking the EAS Betagen, which has only 2.5 grams of creatine? Is this
amount low enough to be considered as \"not taking creatine\" during my off cycle?
3. Should I increase the
HMB from the current intake of 2 grams?
4. Is the 5 to 10 grams of glutamine enough?
5. Anything else I need
to look at as far as adding supplement wise? (I\'m not really that interested in supplementing with prohormone
products as I don\'t want to worry about the possible side effects - unless these worries are
unfounded.)
I\'d like to keep most of the strength gains while off the creatine, but I don\'t want to have to
take eight billion supplements in order to do so.
Advice and input, looney or sane, is mucho
appreciate.
Thanks.
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