We've now discussed Creatine Monohydrate & CEE and their usage amounts. There are still two forms of Creatine left to cover.

3) Creatine Malate is a fairly rare form of Creatine that is generally used in addition to other forms of Creatine. There's a specific reason for this. Creatine Malate is Creatine Monohydrate bonded to Malic Acid. In order for Creatine to effectively bond to an Acid, which typically breaks Creatine Monohydrate down to Creatinine quickly, three Creatine Monohydrate molecules must bond to 1 Malic Acid molecule. This is generally difficult to do, and the resulting powder is rather unstable on its own. It also interacts very easily with gaseous forms which will break the bond between the Malic Acid and the Creatine Monohydrate. It is also the most costly form of Creatine to produce because of it's unstable nature.

The benefit of Creatine Malate, is that it blends with water easily, as the malic acid combines with the water because of the stronger chemical attraction, than Creatine Monohydrate has to water. Meaning it doesn't break down into Creatinine very easily in water. This helps with gastro-intestinal issues. The second benefit of this, is water bonded with the Creatine Malate is then transfered throughout the body quickly.

The downside to the bonding to water, is that the Malate doesn't release it's bond very easily. Meaning that some of the Creatine Malate is simply flushed through the system without entering the muscle cells.

Creatine Malate is generally not sold on it's own, and is generally sold in a blend of Creatines, as it's a faster absorbing Creatine than other forms like CEE or Kre-Alkalyn, and is mostly used to promote a quicker absorbtion while you wait for the longer absorbing Creatines enter the blood stream. So there are no recommended dosages for Creatine Malate individually.

4) Kre-Alkalyn is the newest form of Creatine. It was patented in 2008. The author of the patent for Kre-Alkalyn is the same person who discovered Arginine Alpha Keto Gluturate (AAKG) converted to Nitic Oxide in the muscles, and how NO benefited weight lifters.

In his research he found that Creatine Monohydrate broke down extremely quickly in high pH environments to Creatinine, and because of the acidic environment of the human stomach, Creatine Monohydrate was only half, or less, effective as it could be if it was more stable.

Kre-Alkalyn is just Creatine Monohydrate that has a pH buffer. What this scientifically means, is that during the manufacturing process, the Creatine on the molecular level, artificially has its pH levels raised by adding a positively charged ion to the compound. Therefore producing an "acid" like quality. Because the Creatine has this positive pH level, your stomach acids are repelled and don't interact with the Creatine to break it down into Creatinine. (Think two positively charged magnates)

A great benefit of having the Creatine staying in its pure form, is that it then doesn't have any fillers attached to it which may block the absorption of it into the muscles. This form delivers the purest form of Creatine to the muscle cells, therefore giving the best performance.

The exciting part, is that because it absorbs at the correct rate, while attracting the correct amount of sodium into the muscles, which in turn add to the available energy for the muscle fiber, there isn't as much water absorbed into muscle fibers as other forms, which allows more water to be readily available for other cells, and reducing the "bloat" to next to zero.

This has a lesser effect of having a less volumizing effect while on Kre-Alkalyn, but also more gains are retained after a cycle, because less water is flushed from the muscle fibers.

All of these factors point to Kre-Alkalyn being the best performing Creatine on the market, with the least opportunity for negative side effects from use.

Because Kre-Alkalyn does not break down into Creatinine very easily, and is easily absorbed into the muscle fibers, regular dosages are 3G~6G per day.

Although Kre-Alkalyn has been shown to generally work for most individuals, those with lower pH levels of stomach acid, have been shown to have a lower rate of return from Kre-Alkalyn because the acids in their stomachs are more likely to interact with the buffered Creatine, causing it to break down more into Creatinine. Unfortunately it's extremely hard to test for pH levels of stomach acids, so the only way to know what you have is to try out the different forms and see which ones work best.


So those are the different forms of Creatine. In Part IV - General Questions, we'll cover a few of the questions that continually come up, as well as some pointers for effective Creatine use.