Anabolism: The set of metabolic pathways that construct molecules from smaller units (Wikipedia).

Let me expand this rather abstract definition of anabolism to better suit our purposes.

With reference to muscle development, anabolism is the combined set of cellular and hormonal circumstances that cause muscle growth to out weigh muscle breakdown following exercise.

With reference to creatine supplementation, recent scientific studies have been revealing some very exciting ways that creatine supplementation helps boost cellular anabolism.

First, the mere physical presence of creatine within a muscle cell serves as an anabolic stimulus. Creatine monohydrate causes muscles to swell with water, which turns out to be an anabolic stimulus for cells.

Secondly, creatine, or rather its active form known as phosphocreatine, is an energy buffer for most cells of the body. Hence, creatine allows your muscle to perform more work. And, the more we tax our muscles (within reason, of course), the more they will adapt with the production of new force generating proteins (increasing strength and muscle size) as well as increase the production of proteins that assist in the release of energy from foods (making energy extraction more efficient).

Thirdly, creatine creates a biochemical environment inside the cell that is more permissive for cellular anabolism. This very complicated process will take lots of time to explore. We can only scratch the surface in the first posts. To me, this is the most exciting anabolic mechanism of creatine.

Fourth, creatine makes muscle mechanics more efficient, independently of protein synthesis. It surprises many novice athletes that strength is the outcome of coordinated contraction and relaxation of muscles. An advanced athlete already has an intuitive feel for this fact.

Lastly, some anabolic characteristics of creatine are simply not understood, although they can be observed scientifically - repetitively. These will be fun to contemplate their origin.

One of the main objectives of this blog is to discuss each of these anabolic processes and how to purposefully poise your cellular biochemistry to take the greatest advantage of these. Another major objective of this blog is to discuss other nutritional strategies to enhance muscle growth and retard cellular aging.

For those interested, a preliminary description of these various anabolic mechanisms of creatine can be found at the following page: http://www.creatinemonohydrate.net/creatine_anabolics.html

Is creatine too good to be true? Read about its validated side effects at the following link: http://www.creatinemonohydrate.net/creatine_side_effects.html