Creatine - The Power Supplement - Melvin Williams, Richard Kreider, and J. David Branch

Creatine - The Power Supplement

by Melvin Williams, Richard Kreider, and J. David Branch

NEW, 264 pages

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About Creatine - The Power Supplement

About Melvin Williams

Melvin Williams, PhD, is Eminent Scholar Emeritus in the Department of Exercise Science, Physical Education, and Recreation at Old Dominion University. He has conducted research on various ergogenic aids for over 30 years and has published numerous original research studies and review articles.

Author of The Ergogenics Edge (Human Kinetics, 1998), Dr. Williams also wrote the definitive college text, Nutrition for Fitness and Sport, now in its fifth edition. He is also the founding editor of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition. Dr. Williams is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and a member of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. Dr. Williams lives in Norfolk, Virginia.

About Richard B. Kreider

Richard B. Kreider, PhD, is associate professor, assistant department chair, and director of the Exercise and Sport Nutrition Laboratory in the Department of Human Movement Sciences and Education at the University of Memphis. He has focused his research efforts on ergogenic aids and human physical performance and has conducted numerous studies on creatine supplementation.

Editor of the popular reference, Overtraining in Sport (Human Kinetics, 1998), Dr. Kreider has published more than 100 research articles and abstracts in scientific journals. He is a Fellow of the ACSM and the research digest editor for the International Journal of Sport Nutrition. Dr. Kreider lives in Bartlett, Tennessee.

About J. David Branch

J. David Branch, PhD, is assistant professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University. He has conducted several studies involving ergogenic aids, including the effects of creatine supplementation on women.

Since 1980 Dr. Branch has been supervisor of Bicycle Ergometer Graded Exercise Testing for the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Health/Fitness Screening Program. He has also served as codirector of a fitness and cardiac rehabilitation center.

Dr. Branch is a Fellow of the ACSM and has been widely published. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia.

Reviews of this book

"Many nutritional supplements come and go without much commotion, but none has generated the kind of interest or debate that creatine has. Creatine: The Power Supplement is a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of creatine use and its effects on athletic performance and health. In this clear and superbly organized monograph, Drs. Williams, Kreider, and Branch have done a fantastic job of tackling the tough issues from scientific as well as practical angles. The creatine-related myths and half-truths won't have long to live when this information hits the scene!"
Steven Scott Plisk, MS, CSCS
Director of Sports Conditioning
Yale University

About Strength Training

Strength training is the use of resistance to muscular contraction to build the strength, anaerobic endurance, and size of skeletal muscles. There are many different methods of strength training, the most common being the use of gravity or elastic/hydraulic forces to oppose muscle contraction. See the resistance training article for information about elastic/hydraulic training, but note that the terms "strength training" and "resistance training" are often used interchangeably.

When properly performed, strength training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being, including increased bone, muscle, tendon and ligament strength and toughness, improved joint function, reduced potential for injury, increased bone density, a temporary increase in metabolism, improved cardiac function, and elevated HDL (good) cholesterol. Training commonly uses the technique of progressively increasing the force output of the muscle through incremental increases of weight, elastic tension or other resistance, and uses a variety of exercises and types of equipment to target specific muscle groups. Strength training is primarily an anaerobic activity, although some proponents have adapted it to provide the benefits of aerobic exercise through circuit training.

Strength training differs from bodybuilding, weightlifting, powerlifting, and strongman, which are sports rather than forms of exercise, although training for them is inherently interconnected with strength training, as it is for shotput, discus, and Highland games. Many other sports use strength training as part of their training regimen, notably football, rugby, lacrosse, basketball, hockey, and track and field

The basic principles of strength training involve a manipulation of the number of repetitions (reps), sets, tempo, exercises and force to cause desired changes in strength, endurance, size or shape by overloading of a group of muscles. The specific combinations of reps, sets, exercises, resistance and force depend on the purpose of the individual performing the exercise: sets with fewer reps can be performed using more force, but have a reduced impact on endurance.

Strength training also requires the use of 'good form', performing the movements with the appropriate muscle group(s), and not transferring the weight to different body parts in order to move greater weight/resistance (called 'cheating'). Typically failure to use good form during a training set can result in injury or an inability to meet training goals - since the desired muscle group is not challenged sufficiently, the threshold of overload is never reached and the muscle does not gain in strength. There are cases when cheating is beneficial, as is the case where weaker groups become the weak link in the chain and the target muscles are never fully exercised as a result.

The benefits of strength training include increased muscle, tendon and ligament strength, bone density, flexibility, tone, metabolic rate and postural support.

Creatine - The Power Supplement