One supplement that proves to be very popular among the muscle building crowd, time and time again, is creatine. While creatine itself is not going to magically make the body put on muscle mass, what creatine will do is allow you to train harder and recover faster between your workouts, therefore making it easier to come back to the gym each day for more.

Most people do not take in enough creatine naturally through their diets - those who choose to lead a vegetarian lifestyle particularly, so it's important to be aware of your current intake and consider supplementing if you're training quite intensely.

One question that many people do find themselves asking though, is whether it's a good idea to load with creatine or not. Is it really necessary or can you get away without doing so?

The Traditional Creatine Use Approach

The traditional way of using creatine is to utilize a five day loading phase, where you'll take in twenty grams each day, essentially fully stocking the body and replenishing any depleted creatine stores.

Having this five day period where you really ‘go hard' helps to promote the recovery of the stores that much faster, thus typically delivering the best results possible.

That said though, there are some things that can happen to some individuals that makes the whole loading phase rather undesirable.

First, loading with this type of volume can sometimes cause a great deal of bloating in individuals, thus making it incredibly hard for them to carry out their workouts.

Secondly, creatine does make a person retain water weight, and some people just simply do not take this all that well psychologically.

While most can accept the fact that this weight will be temporary, some cannot and for them, this loading phase does more trouble than good.

The Alternative Creatine Use Approach

Therefore, to help overcome these couple of problems, you can either reduce the loading phase considerably or skip it all together and move into a more maintenance phase immediately.

If you're just reducing the loading phase, then what you should be doing is taking in about ten grams a day for a ten day period. In doing so then, you're basically doubling the length of the loading phase, but you'll still be taking in the same amount total during the procedure.

This will help to relieve the bloating and water weight gain in many people, so it can prove to be a good alternative.

For those who simply want to do away with loading altogether though, then they should opt to take the standard five grams per day on a continual basis.

Note that this is the typical recommendation for after the loading phase is completed in both the standard and the reduced protocol described above.

While doing it in this manner likely won't produce the same types of results as quickly, if it means you're better able to tolerate using the supplement, this is the way you should do it.

You'll still be better off than if you would have elected to just avoid using creatine altogether.

So, be sure you keep these options in mind if you're considering creatine. It is one supplement that is usually worthwhile to invest in for most people, as it does help to improve the performance level of your workouts.