Many companies have tried to improve upon creatine by combining it with different supplements and nutrients. This is a compelling idea because if we can signal the muscles to take up more creatine from the blood, we will increase strength and muscle size – it’s that simple. The only problem is that there are only a few substances that can do this successfully. Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t work when combined with creatine.
Creatine and Ribose
Some companies combined ribose with creatine and this is an interesting idea. Let’s look at why. All the body’s movements, including exercising, are fueled by ATP. ATP is created in the body from food calories through a variety of metabolic processes. Basically, ribose is used to construct the ATP molecule. The theory is that extra ribose will allow the body to restore ATP levels in the muscle that have been depleted by exercise. Without getting too technical, ribose does regenerate ATP in some situations in which muscles have undergone very intense, exhaustive exercise. However, it has very limited effects on performance in these situations and only with very high dosages.
When it was tested in weight training men, 10 grams per day of ribose for four weeks increased their bench press by about 8 pounds, the group that didn’t get ribose increased their bench press by about 5 pounds – these results are not very impressive considering that most ribose supplements contain less than one third of the amount used in this research. Ribose has not been shown to increase muscle mass. So on its own, despite having a solid theoretical basis, ribose is not very effective even when large doses are used. No published studies exist to show that ribose and creatine would have any special effects when combined together. So until ribose is shown to increase performance or muscle mass at affordable dosages, stick with proven creatine formulas.