What chemical compound can be taken to build muscle mass?

Creatine Monohydrate for Muscle Mass Building

Creatine monohydrate is the chemical compound you should take to build muscle mass, as it has the strongest evidence for increasing muscle creatine stores, enhancing training capacity, and promoting gains in lean body mass and muscle strength when combined with resistance training. 1

Recommended Dosing Protocol

The British Journal of Sports Medicine guidelines provide clear dosing strategies 1:

Loading Phase:

• 20 g/day divided into four equal doses (5 g each) for 5-7 days 1
• This rapidly saturates muscle creatine stores 1

Maintenance Phase:

• 3-5 g/day as a single dose for the duration of supplementation 1
• Continue for as long as you want to maintain elevated muscle creatine levels 1

Alternative Low-Dose Approach:

• 2-5 g/day for 28 days achieves similar muscle creatine saturation without the initial weight gain associated with loading 1
• This approach takes longer but avoids the 1-2 kg body mass increase that occurs with rapid loading 1

Mechanism of Action

Creatine works through specific physiological pathways 1:

• Increases intramuscular phosphocreatine stores, which enhances ATP resynthesis during high-intensity exercise 1
• Improves training capacity by allowing more work to be performed during resistance training sessions 1
• Promotes chronic training adaptations including increased muscle strength, power, and lean body mass 1
• Increases phosphocreatine within muscle cells, thereby increasing ATP production essential for muscle protein synthesis 1

Efficacy Evidence

The evidence for creatine is stronger than for other muscle-building supplements 1:

• Creatine and caffeine have the strongest performance supplement evidence compared to β-alanine, nitrate, or other compounds 1
• Improves high-intensity repeated sprint performance consistently across studies 1
• Increases muscle mass and strength when combined with resistance training more effectively than training alone 2
• Enhances training adaptations at cellular and sub-cellular levels at doses of 0.1 g/kg body weight 2

Optimization Strategy

Enhance absorption by co-ingesting with carbohydrates and protein 1:

• Consume creatine with approximately 50 g of protein and 50 g of carbohydrates 1
• This combination enhances muscle creatine uptake via insulin stimulation 1

Safety Profile

Creatine monohydrate has an excellent safety record 1:

• No negative health effects following appropriate protocols 1
• The most common side effect is transient water retention (1-2 kg increase in body mass) during loading phase 1, 3
• Safe for long-term use when taken at recommended doses 4, 2
• Approximately 4-6 weeks required for muscle creatine levels to return to baseline after discontinuation 1

Critical Caveats

Use only creatine monohydrate 5:

• Other forms (creatine ethyl ester, buffered creatine, etc.) have no evidence of superior efficacy compared to monohydrate 5, 3
• Creatine monohydrate is the most extensively studied and validated form 5

Avoid contaminated supplements 1:

• Approximately 15% of supplements contain undeclared prohormones or banned substances 1
• Use third-party tested products (Informed Sport, Kölner Liste) to minimize contamination risk 1

Why Not Other Compounds?

Testosterone/Anabolic Steroids 1:

• Increase muscle mass but carry significant health risks including prostate cancer stimulation in men, virilization in women, and cardiovascular complications 1
• Require medical supervision and are inappropriate for general muscle building 1

Leucine/HMB 1:

• Evidence is inconsistent and limited primarily to clinical populations 1
• No clear advantage over adequate protein intake in healthy individuals 1

Growth Hormone 1:

• Increases muscle mass but seldom yields strength increases 1
• Expensive and requires daily injections 1