Now that you know what Creatine is and what exactly it does for your body, now it's time to pick the right form of Creatine for you.

Creatine comes in 4 available types:

1) Creatine Monohydrate
2) Creatine Ethyl Ester
3) Creatine Malate
4) Kre-Alkalyn

I'm going to cover each form and the correct dosages for using each of these types of Creatine. In this section we'll go over Creatine Monohydrate & Creatine Ethyl Ester.

To preface any usage of Creatine should always be cycled. A normal cycle of Creatine lasts between 8~12 weeks, and the half life of Creatine is 4 weeks. So a break of 4~5 weeks is needed to return your body to normal levels between cycles. This is very important as we will learn later.

1) Creatine Monohydrate is the original form of Creatine. In fact all Creatine is Creatine Monohydrate, just boneded with other chemicals. This form of Creatine, is Creatine bonded to a singular water molecule. When bonded to the singular water molecule, the Creatine acts to inhibit waters liquid qualities, forming a fine white powder.

The bond between Creatine and Water is very unstable, and is easily broken in any substance with an acidic PH level. Water is necessary for Creatine to become PhosphoCreatine in the digestive system. Once that bond between Creatine and Water is broken, Creatine becomes Creatinine, which I covered the negative effects of Creatinine in Part I.

Creatine Monohydrate is therefore, the easiest Creatine form to break down into Creatinine. Since it is so easy to break Creatine down into Creatinine, and any acidic substance will break the bond of Creatine and Water, you have to take a large dose of Creatine to reap the benefits of use. Typical dosages of Creatine Monohydrate are between 10~30G of Creatine Monohydrate per day. This means that your body will also be flushing the most amount of Creatinine through its kidneys during use. If you have a history of kidney problems, it is not recommended to use Creatine Monohydrate regularly.

With Creatine Monohydrate, there is also a "loading phase" that is associated with it's use. Your muscle system needs to build up the proper amount of Creatine in the system before you will see any benefits. Because Creatine lasts 4 weeks once absorbed into the system, once the loading phase is over, you will see results for as long as you maintain the levels in your system.

A loading phase of Creatine Monohydrate consists of 5~7 days of a minimum of 15, up to 25 G of Creatine a day.

Once the load phase is over, only 10~15 G of Creatine are needed to maintain your Creatine levels.

Since Creatine Monohydrate is very suseptible to breaking down in acidic solutions, do not mix Creatine Monohydrate into juices or anything effervescent as it will take just 43 seconds to completely break down to Creatinine.

The safest substance for Creatine Monohydrate to mix into is water, but drink immediately as it will still cause the Creatine to become unstable. Since Coffee has a low level of acidity, if you need caffeine mix Creatine Monohydrate into Coffee or Tea. Drink immediately once mixed, as Creatine will break down completely in 8 minutes or less to Creatinine fully in water.

2) Creatine Ethyl Ester are Creatine Monohydrate bonded to an Ester or Ethane that has been bonded to an acid substance. When Ethane has been bonded to an acid, it becomes attracted to the bond of a water molecule, which Creatine Monohydrate has. Once the Ester bonds with the water molecule it protects it from other Acidic compounds from destroying it's bonds.

That means it's very hard for the stomach acids to break the bond of the Monohydrate with Creatine, forming Creatinine. One of the side benefits of an Ethyl Ester, is that Esters use fat more readily to transport themselves into your blood streams. Meaning they can be absorbed at a higher rate into the muscles in certain circumstances.

Although this may sound good, and definitely is better than Creatine Monohydrate, those with a low percentage of body fat may not benefit from this increased absorption rate.

One thing is certain, that because these Ethyl Esters make Creatine better at absorption, more of the Creatine enters the cell walls, causing more of the water to be retained in the cells per volume of Creatine. This helps with muscle volumization. Also, once the Creatine is seperated from the Ethyl Ester, the Ethyl Ester doesn't break down, but rather attaches to another water molecule making it easier to absorb into other cells. This reduces the risk of water retention by the other cells outside the muscles & helps to minimize "bloat."

CEE comes in capsule form, and because it doesn't break down easily into Creatinine, and is better absorbed into the muscles, the recommended dosage of CEE is greatly reduced from Creatine Monohydrate & there is no "loading phase" associated with CEE.

The recommended dosage is 2250 MG of CEE.

To be continued in Part III - Creatine Malate & Kre-Alkalyn