Find your personalized creatine monohydrate dose — optional loading phase and daily maintenance — based on your body weight. ⚕️ Evidence-based
Loading & maintenance
⚕️ General guidance, not medical advice. Stay hydrated; check with a doctor if you have kidney issues.
Creatine monohydrate is the most researched sports supplement, shown to improve strength, power and muscle mass. The standard maintenance dose is 3–5 g per day (about 0.03 g/kg). An optional loading phase — roughly 0.3 g/kg/day (around 20 g split into 4 doses) for 5–7 days — saturates your muscles faster; after that you drop to maintenance.
Loading isn't required: taking 3–5 g daily reaches the same saturation in about 3–4 weeks. Take it any time of day, with or without food, and stay well hydrated. Consistency matters more than timing. General guidance, not medical advice.
Creatine monohydrate is among the most studied sports supplements, and dosing is straightforward because it works by saturating muscle stores rather than by acute effect. Two protocols reach the same endpoint. A loading phase of roughly 0.3 g per kilogram daily, split across four doses for five to seven days, saturates stores quickly; simply taking the maintenance dose of about 0.03 g per kilogram reaches the same saturation in three to four weeks. Neither is superior at the destination — loading only arrives sooner, at the cost of more frequent gastrointestinal complaints.
Loading dose = body weight (kg) × 0.3 g/day, split into 4 doses, for 5–7 daysMaintenance dose = body weight (kg) × 0.03 g/dayCommon simplification: 20 g/day loading, 5 g/day maintenanceSaturation without loading: 3–4 weeks at maintenancewhere:
Assumptions: General information, not medical advice. Creatine raises serum creatinine, a kidney marker, without indicating kidney damage — worth mentioning to a clinician before blood tests. Adequate fluid intake is advised.
Compute both protocols and compare how quickly each saturates.
ResultLoad at 24.6 g/day for a week, then 2.5 g/day — or skip loading entirely
Skipping the loading phase uses less than half the creatine to reach an identical endpoint, three weeks later. The common 5 g maintenance recommendation is generous for an 82 kg adult; the weight-based 2.5 g is sufficient, and the surplus is simply excreted.