Creatine - anyone using it to enhance their meet performance?

A big no dice here on creatine. Personally stuff like that is high risk and borderline cheating. Advil and caffine are my suplements. Got Boost Caffeine (guarana) is banned by the NCAA in certain concentrations - see www1.ncaa.org/.../banned_drug_classes.pdf. Creatine is not banned by the NCAA. Caffeine is on the WADA monitoring program - see www.wada-ama.org/.../Monitoring_Program_2006_ENG.pdf Creatine is not banned by WADA - see www.wada-ama.org/.../Quiz_English.pdf This leads me to conclude that I am a cheater by both NCAA and WADA standards due to my coffee habit.

There is no subsititute for good old fashioned hard work. :drink:

I'll put a different sort of vessel on ice for post-workout recovery.

I am definitely a caffeine cheater. Only 15 milligrams allowed. Oh well. I don't care. I'll cheat away. :coffee: I wonder if cortisone shots count as illegal steroids?

I can personally attest to the ice baths after a workout. We used to do this during pre-Olympic days after workouts. Warm water, followed by cool water, and then finally warm water followed by cold water. The increase in blood flow to tired muscles was awesome. The next day, you could hardly tell that you had a blitz of a workout the day before. Granted, it was very uncomfortable to say the least, but hey, we weren't wimps. Nowadays, people are always hunting for something in a bottle instead of basic tried and true methods and using natural foods that they may not have tried to aid in combating training fatigue. And with the advertising so in our face, it is easy to fall prey to "new" things to try, which I might add, are very expensive. I remember when people used to swim the English Channel and rely on apple juice and oatmeal cookies. Now everyone seems to want to say they are taking "this product" or "that product." And the question remains: do they work and how much benefit are they? Or are we all just walking advertisements. On my 18 mile swim, I am keeping it simple: gatorade mixed with honey, oatmeal cookies with cranberries or raisins (minimal sugar), teaspoons of peanut butter, lots of H20, and low-fat chocolate milk with some coffee mixed in. And this last one will probably be a surprise, but a piece of plain, white bread settles my stomach when I get nauseous from the wave action; actually better than Saltines. There may be some good products out there to supplement and aid, but I don't think my checkbook will allow me to experiment and find out. donna

Aquageek: I don't believe your a cheater unless you drink more than 8 full cups of coffee before your competition and after during the drug test it will show up as the above legal amount according to FINA. I remember many years ago a swimmer was suspended in a FINA competition in South American because of caffeine showed up in the drug test and it was on the banned subtance list. There was an appeal and I believe the swimmer was reinstated meaning they did not have to serve a 2 year suspension. I will have to check who this was and when it happened. I though the WADA had limits on how much caffeine you could have in your system and if you went over that limit you could be banned. As far as creatine, unless the laws have changed, I know that it was not a banned substance for many years by the sports governing bodies. I know as a master swimmer, I used to get information about creatine in the mail back in the late 1980's on how to order it and use it to get advantages in athletic performance but I never used the stuff. We had a discussion on this forum and I believe Goodsmith/Evil Smith used the product and provided feedback to us about the disadvantages with its use. Look at posts 11 and 12 of the link I provided. I am also providing a link of product information. forums.usms.org/showthread.php www.thejump101.com/.../creatscience_2.html

Frank: Good points. The point I was trying to make is that creatine is probably not going to do much for you and, therefore, is not banned. Or, whatever it does for you doesn't really improve performance. Caffeine, on the other hand, at some dosage can improve performance and is therefore illegal. I found this all quite ironic. I know my friend scyfreestyler with his supplement addiction probably can shed more light on this topic than I can.

Creatine works and is extremally common in College swimming...100% no doubt about it....it increases strength and reduces recovery time.....and yes I have used in the past (actually first tried it in rehab after shoulder surgery)....but won't any more because of my HB and the weight gain. Musle Milk is the latest and greatest supplemant to aid in building muscle and reducing recovery time.....its legal and OTC and highly touted by the U of A teams (Schoeman) as well as quite a few other USS & college swimmers. Fort....sorry to disagree but the 50/100 free are almost 100% about power and strength.....and these types of products can/do help.

Fort....sorry to disagree but the 50/100 free are almost 100% about power and strength.....and these types of products can/do help. That's OK. ;) Looks like you also disagreed with Matt and HWMNBN. I said I wasn't an expert and although Rich has been calling me a "science experiment" lately, I have not experimented on my body with creatine yet. Just what I've read ... I'm already a caffeine druggie anyway, although not really quite up to Frank's 8 cup before the big race cheater standard. I won't use creatine though -- even to enhance my beloved 50s and 100s. I just don't want to enhance my back and shoulders anymore than they have already been enhanced through swimming. :rofl: What happened to SPL being important for sprints too? Now, it's all power and strength? :thhbbb: I'm going to lift weights soon ...

Smith makes a point worth exploring. I guess a main reason creatine isn't performance enhancing is that it is primarily trouted as a recovery and/or training aid? I don't believe it was in any type of disagreement with what I said. It was a statement of the use of creatine as a recovery versus raceday performance supplement.