Researchers analyzed data from 39 eligible trials to understand how creatine supplementation affects body composition, maximal strength, and exercise performance. The participants were healthy men between 18 and 30 years old who engaged in either resistance training or non-resistance training activities. The study found that when creatine was taken alongside resistance training, participants gained significantly more fat-free mass and lean body mass compared to those without creatine. In terms of power, creatine supplementation increased peak and mean power during anaerobic tests like the Wingate test, showing benefits even without resistance training. The analysis also noted improvements in jump height across the pooled data.
No safety concerns or adverse events were reported in the included studies, suggesting creatine is well-tolerated in this context. However, the estimate for jump height improvements showed high heterogeneity, meaning the results varied widely across studies and should be interpreted with caution. The main reason to be careful is that the benefit for body composition depends heavily on doing resistance training at the same time. Readers should realistically take from this that creatine is a useful tool for building muscle when paired with lifting, but it may not improve jump performance consistently for everyone.
