Research
Energy balance
Creatine supplementation improves performance in short-duration, high-intensity anaerobic exercises (≤30s) by facilitating faster ATP regeneration.
If you do sprinting, interval training, or sports with short bursts of effort, creatine can help you perform slightly better (around 7.5% improvement) by helping your muscles regenerate energy faster. It won't help much with long-distance running.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Creatine may be of benefit in other modes of exercise such as high-intensity sprints or endurance training. However, it appears that the effects of creatine diminish as the length of time spent exercising increases.
Why this rating
Supported by meta-analyses showing effect sizes, though less consistent than for resistance training.
Source
Creatine supplementation with specific view to exercise/sports performance: an update
Robert G. Cooper et al. · Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition · 2012
DOI 10.1186/1550-2783-9-33
narrative_reviewCited 300×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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