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What you’ll hear in this episode:

• What creatine is and what it can do for the body
• How Top Trainer ensures the safety of its supplements
• The importance of using supplements under physician supervision

A physician’s presence is often left out of conversations around the use of supplements and that’s why Dr. Khris Ramdeen invited Eric and Sean of Top Trainer to his podcast today. 

“I want to stress the importance of any supplement that you ever think about taking,” Dr. Ramdeen tells his listeners, “It’s always important to check your labs — kidney function, liver function, electrolytes — before and during the time that you’re taking the supplements.” 

However, assuming the body if functioning properly, using supplements can provide some beneficial results. Creatine is one of the most popular supplements that people use and Top Trainer’s version is called Cr-Power. Creatine already exists in muscle cells, but taking it as a supplement can help improve exercise performance. Essentially, it helps you get a few more reps in at the gym. 

Listen to this episode of Apple a Day Doc Talk to hear Eric and Sean talk in detail about how exactly creatine works with the body to give a performance boost. They are able to explain on a molecular level the potential benefits of using creatine as a supplement. Of course, Dr. Ramdeen is there to give tips on how to use creatine safely! If you like what you hear in this episode, share it with a friend or work out buddy! 

Apple a Day Doc Talk is a Founding Media podcast created in partnership with Dr. Khris Ramdeen.

Host: Dr. Khris Ramdeen

Guests: Eric and Sean of Top Trainer

Transcript:

this is a founding media podcast 

this is doctor Ramdeen here with apple with a day  the purpose of this podcast is the bridge medicine and fitness and one of the goals is talking about supplements and safety and efficacy of supplements and today we’re gonna talk about creatine with top trainer Eric and Sean are here with top trainer in today have a combined twenty five years of experience in the supplement industry and they’re based here out of Austin 

Sean Eric thank you so much for coming in thanks for having us Preciado it super excited to be here tell me a little bit about how you guys got the started in what you’re doing this yep so for me  this is Eric so  I’ve always been kind of a you know an athlete growing up getting into college I kinda didn’t do sports but it was always interested in you know working out and got into the supplement world rule early on nineteen years old  got into GNC stores did well with that ended up working for wholesale after that and then ended up owning a few nutrition stores across across a few states and really found like a passion for helping people through health and fitness and through supplements right and so that’s kind of how top trainer we we decide to start that met Sean this guy here he’s got awesome experience to Sean 

yeah I started with a company called six pack shortcuts I’m sure many of you remember that with Mike Chang but basically got that up and running with a few friends there then left that recently to come help Eric with  getting top trainer up around excellent and one of the reasons why I’ve teamed up with Shawn and Eric here’s because there hasn’t been really much of a physician presence when talking about supplements through doing what you guys are doing and so my goal always is to keep your safety at you know first and foremost importance but still help yet educate you on what the supplements can do for you and I want to stress the importance of any supplement that you ever think about taking it’s always important to check your labs kidney function liver function allows for lights before and during the time that you’re taking the supplements 

so I wanted to ask you guys you know stemming from that safety kind of perspective that I’m trying to  make patients more aware of can you tell me some of the safety practices and policies that you guys employ to try to make sure you’re you’re delivering high quality products yeah absolutely so first and foremost as a supplement company in it with top trainer of quality is the number one killer for us we want to make sure that we’re delivering a extremely high quality products so we do work with a hand for a few different manufacturers in the big things that we qualify them with is the number one is they all gonna be FDA registered facilities that is a big key components  if if they are registered with the FDA we won’t even you know I’ll work with them at all but another thing is that they have to have good manufacturing practices and their certifications for that we we ask for their search right away  so that is a big key to it too and every time that we have a product manufactured whether it’s you know on a new product or another batch of the same product  it’s we always ask for a certificate of analysis and the reason that’s important is because you want to make sure that every time that a product is produced that it is meeting exactly what is on the label claims and we even rejected products  knowing that Hey this isn’t a hundred percent of what you know it was on the label we want to make sure that we’re delivering to our customers what we say we are so it is very important to us excellent and 

the first product you know that we’re gonna talk about today is the most popular performance in enhancing supplement on the market creatine and tell me the name of your your product the name of our creating the C. R. power and  I’m a huge fan of that mainly because of creating mag powers an ingredient where they take creatine  is single molecule of creatine and magnesium and they combine it together and then magnesium by itself has all kinds of  does all kinds of great things for us but one of the main reasons why we combine those two is because it’s going to help with the absorption of it so obviously everybody knows it’s one thing if you’re if you’re going for taking supplementary feeding real healthy but it’s an entirely different thing for bodies actually absorbing it so you want to make sure your body is absorbing it that way you do get the best possible results from taking the treaty 

so what are the benefits of creatine why why even take it  well I mean the biggest reason why people take it easy just because for that extra boost in their physical performance whether it’s getting an extra three reps standard plan and  an extra two minutes in overtime it makes its way your body isn’t gonna fatigue is fast so it keeps your body fire which is the A. T. P. that the the creating converts into in the magnesium actually help that happen but basically think of it as just going for lack of a better term going super saying mode just at the end of the work out or just completely just BC now when your work as to take it to the full potential and get those extra weapons prep St so you’re breaking your body down even more in its repair any even more building more mass and strength yeah excellent and and just as the physician you know nerdy part of this conversation so creatine exactly you know pharmacologic Klay speaking support everything you just said it’s made up of three amino acids arginine methionine and lysine there like the legos are the building blocks that build up  the creatine molecule ninety five percent of your creatine is found in skeletal muscles which are the ones that you’re working out in the gym with you know intentional contractions and then when you take creatine of that ninety five percent in the muscle sixty five percent is stored as a molecule called phospho creatine now this gets a little wonky but I just want you to understand for our audience how it works the phospho creatine sit basically donates a phosphorus group to an E. D. P. which is the precursor to that molecule you just mentioned  the ATP and ATP is formed which is now the power house which allows is the fuel for those muscle contractions and when you have more E. T. P. you can do more short duration high intensity exercise so from beginning to end creatine the whole point is to regenerate that ATP quicker so that you could do those types of workouts that are really consistent with hit type workouts or high intensity interval training 

right yeah it absolutely and that’s kind of what that creating manpower does is it allows the body to generate and regenerate ATP at a faster rate so basically just giving you more insurance and let your your muscles really explode just a little Dick few more times and it typically what exactly you get a little bit more out of your workouts in terms of intensity and maybe even another rapper too and it not only increases in performance but it actually improves your recovery and what creatine does aside from what we just talked about actually pulls water into the muscle cells it doesn’t cause a generalized swelling like people say oh I I have bloating from it it’s not the extra vascular tissues that get loaded with water it’s inside the muscle cells so it does give you more full looking your musculature and just the  phenomenon that I thought would be relevant to creatine not just for the young you know nineteen year old Lang  starting work out really early Eric even for all of us as we age there’s a phenomenon called sarcopenia we’re we have age related muscle loss in creating can help combat that in combination with and this is where the multi faceted approach comes from resistance training so you have to train you can’t just take any supplement writing at the effects of it unless you’re working with it yeah absolutely absolutely went with what was the name of that again the the the the disease you’re talking as we get older  sarcopenia cystic age as you age we lose muscle mass if you don’t absolutely it in as we age W. that starts around thirty or forty that’s right and then it just progressively gets worse right yet so and that’s just  and did you take creatine would be a great way to combat that it would help yes even in combination with resistance training and beautiful okay and so why why is this one of your favorites I know you guys talk about this being one of your favorite products what wise yeah absolutely the home for for me personally  just playing sports my whole life being in the army as well just always being physical I’m a huge fan of it because it’s it’s a very healthy safe way of increasing your performance your overall strength in a relatively short period of time 

I don’t know any other supplement that’s that’s is where that’s as clean as healthy as as creating especially creating with manpower that’ll give you those type of benefits and and actually move the weights as much as it does in in in in a short period of time I totally agree with that creatine was actually the compound that spurred the this whole fitness supplement industry that’s the one that began on it but it doesn’t work for everyone honestly about thirty percent of people can be non respond or sting preteens so that’s just something to keep in mind you know it absolutely and may not work for you Ben with that is there is any way would you think it would be kind of depending on what type of creatine somebody is is taking in it may there hasn’t been a lot of evidence on that but what is for sure is about thirty percent of that is what they call non responders okay yeah yet for creating for me I do that strength explosiveness the power right now so I think we’ll see our power you really can feel you know in the GM the strength explosiveness  and it’s not just for for weightlifters its athletes right on there’s even benefits for people that aren’t you know training to be athletes are big weightlifters to to take creatine right now the way I talk about athleticism in my practice is that it is expected 

just as you mentioned it’s all the way from the obese patient wanting to learn to work out tomorrow all the way up to the professional athlete athleticism is for everyone it’s just a matter of how intense where you are on that spectrum so I totally agree what are your thoughts Chris I’m just curious on so like a lot of times G. people think creatine and and it’s gonna make me feel bloated and I don’t want to take that in and I hear that a lot from women with it that’s the first two years they don’t wanna they don’t want to get that puffy look in so for us when we develop this the research a lot of research that we did when we were coming up with this was that the magnifier that the that Sean keeps talking about it it does eliminate a lot of that bloating in order to get a lot of that the good effects from the creatine will have to load it  with ours  well you never say never in medicine it’s always possible to hack any of the side effects especially G. I. upset astro intestinal upset like you know boating type sensation but in terms of like fluid loading you know like almost like a dina having fluid extravasation to the extracellular spaces outside of the cells yeah that’s not really what creatine does is impossible anything’s possible but that would be really unlikely that for that to happen okay as you look at it as more as just the the pop and the bring the water just into the moss into the muscle cells right which would make the muscles appear Baker yes got it yes so yeah when you stop taking it you can lose a lot of water weight right that’s yeah and

another common misconception that that  that we hear quite a bit is the is that Cree teens extremely harmful on your kidneys what would what would you say about that Chris there hasn’t been any very strong evidence to support that but this is very new ones this is why again it’s really important to follow with your primary care doc again with any supplement that you use to check your labs before and during any medication it using any supplement that using but having said that the way we measure the kidney function is by a lab call creatinine and creatinine is very similar in you know just the way that the way it looks the creatine so gets confused a lot so for example if I’m looking at the creatinine level in a patient and it’s elevated high then I can and for that they have some type of kidney disease that they’re not able to filter that create in and out of the blood into the urine that’s why it’s high there’s problems with the kidney filtering so that’s one reason why the creatinine can be elevated and a normal creatinine level is about zero point eight four to one point two one milligrams per deciliter so if you’re about one point two or higher that could indicate the of kidney disease having said that the creatinine level which is the breakdown product of creatine kind of like a metabolized product can also be high for benign reason reasons in which you do not have kidney disease for example certain medications can increase that creatinine and falsely mislead you to think that all my gosh I’ve got kidney disease like some medicine medications that can do it or cimetidine I don’t know if you guys have heard a backroom very common antibiotic that has trimethoprim minute bathroom is  test to  antibiotics in the trimethoprim and supplement Aksel for trimethoprim is the one that elevates the create an aspirin or salicylates can increase your creatinine level corticosteroids and even active vitamin D. metabolites and this was all kind of explained in a paper by entry of at all in nineteen ninety nine and aside from that your creatinine level in a benign way can be elevated up to two times its normal value about two to four hours after eating cooked meat and that was shown in Willis J. at all in two thousand eight in the paper so basically what I’m saying is yes if your you know your creatinine level is high you could have kidney disease and if you’re taking for example creatine in your creatinine levels high you could have kidney issues but you could very well have just the transient temporary elevation of that create create create name level because of the creatine the tenure system and not necessarily have kidney disease so this is where it becomes very nuanced and again very important to follow with your primary care doc for this supplement and no matter what supplement you’re taking so what I don’t want you to conclude is to say that my creatinine levels high now my kidneys are damaged that may not be true so who’s very very good knowledge yeah that’s that’s great that’s great info and then  

I wanted to ask you guys who’s it for you know who who should take this in who’s it not for well base it for anybody looking to put on strike whether it’s  you know high school athlete college athlete  somebody in the military firefighters even teachers unions and even the mom at home and just dealing with three kids and just looking to get a little bit healthier day it was because it’s in there’s a lot of other things that creatine does and we’ll get into that one of the main things is  have the cognitive thinking but that’s kind of just a whole nother reason only could take creating because it does kind of help with just your everyday decisions kind of help you formulate sentences better and just get you through the day and and and I think they’re start to show that  the way helps a lot with the elderly as well kind of working with a cognitive thinking thinking make sure that everything’s firing on all cylinders up there as well  but as far as the everybody because and obviously you always want to ask your doctor about this because I know there’s some red flags of people with diabetes and other conditions so if you do have any of those conditions absolutely go talk to your doctor first but for you know just everyday athlete or just of the healthy mind body looking just to over increase your overall performance our insurance that it’s that C. R. powers absolutely for you 

right and and I just want to mention you mentioned kind of the age of basically the time when you can start taking creatine there there has been recommendations by the American college of sports medicine did it shouldn’t be used in adolescence or anyone under eighteen not because it’s unsafe but the data there is not very conclusive there’s a very strong evidence correct whether it can be done safely or not and yeah I agree totally again with you mention the elderly again that that phenomenon sarcopenia especially in the elderly when when their  prime to lose muscle mass can be helpful but again going back to the kidney function you mentioned diabetes you can have diabetic nephropathy the kidneys can become infected when you have diabetes for a while and if your creatinine level is already elevated let’s say you do have kidney function and we we know for sure that you know your creatinine is high because of that and not because one of these other factors I mentioned yes you want to try to avoid creatine to confuse the picture of whatever physician is going to be monitoring your status from that point forward so again there is no black and white standard to answer every single question but it is very nuanced and I just want to keep addressing the importance of follow with your primary care doctor and make sure everything’s okay  

as always if you done much Rita mysteries Chris again done much research on like cycling on and off of creatine no we we talk about me there’s these potential having issues with the kidneys and stuff in in cycling you know not taking it year round  maybe what’s recommended and would you say you know how how often should you take it before coming off of that for awhile and then getting back on I haven’t seen any evidence for that the I found is particularly you know intriguing in terms of cycling  and one of the reasons why I I don’t really emphasize that is because create the creatine that you’re taking in order to be effective has to reach a steady state so you have to load it first have to go through a loading phase and then the maintenance stage and the loading phase can be quick you know like a  an acute load which should be five days long verses a chronicle of which is twenty eight days long so if you don’t know that and your quote cycling and your your cycling back up on a chronic low that’s supposed to take twenty eight days but you know you thought it was quicker are you really getting the effects of the creatine if you’re cycling up and down hitting steady state where it’s affected for just a few days or few weeks coming back down it may be counterproductive in the honestly might be wasting your money if you do that but  okay  I don’t really have any strong thoughts on that’s how you doing that right right so it’s basically something that you can take daily yes as long as you’re being monitored and everything is looking good in terms of your kidney function on your blood test so I can take it year round have my muscles fill up with water and hit all all jacked in strong looking great yes and again always with the new ones that if your doctor says it’s okay you know yeah looking consulate always you always consult with a physician exactly 

and  anything else you wanna mention about creating that you think would be important for young people that you are targeting to know  but the biggest thing is just don’t skip out on it definitely give it a shot and I I tell everybody to write write down what you doing in the gym write down what you’re doing keep track of it because that’s how you will truly see your numbers out because if you’re taking the C. R. power you’re doing the work as you eat healthy you do everything you’re supposed to you will see those numbers go up in 

a really important question what does it taste like it’s it’s it’s in capsule form so you don’t taste any of it okay I so do you guys prefer the capsule or the powders there any ride why you chose I prefer the capsule may mainly because  you know it’s special in this day and age a lot of people are on the go anything that’s going to be in powder form is going to come in a larger tub so if you have something that’s in capsule form you can you can even split it up put some in your travel bag as I have I have just a little bit everywhere there’s in my truck in my desk at work or just that number by bedside table at  hope at home but that we always have and I can always take it and keep it in my system and just keep getting those results from it to be honest I like that too because I travel and if you’re say scoop in it in the car yeah I mean it’s really a dry powder inside of a capsule with a heart tablet pers compressed it’s right Israel your get your sensually getting a power yeah yeah it’s yeah lets us most capsules you get a power but it’s just for the efficiency of it yeah 

very cool now where can all our listeners get this product and how can they learn more about you where should they go yes we we promote top trainer supplements throughout GM’s throughout the United States yeah  but we do sell directly on our website it’s at top trainer dot com um and you can we’ve got about forty different products on there it’s called C. R. power it generally dour perform section so we’re kind of categorized into live blues perform still healthy aging products  weight management and sports nutrition so underperform you can find on our website if you can’t find it at your local gym yeah and if you guys ever got any questions on any of that feel free to give us a call before you place an order we definitely want to talk to you here which you got to say get some feedback and just so we can better help you and with the feedback we get from you we just put it back into the company and just try to help you guys out even more and one thing I’d like to say just the behind the scenes things behind the scenes comment is with Eric and Shawn when I talk to them about trying to establish a partnership in order to educate on safety and and and telling them that that’s going to be paramount and that it could affect sales initially they said we don’t care we want to make sure that everything we do is safe and that’s the image we want to have that kind of quality one delivered absolutely it’s I thought sounds really nice that was really friendly here that yeah absolutely because if it’s not helping you or if it’s only helping you for short term short term and cause more damage in the long term absolutely don’t take it there’s no point even taking that risk the whole thing is just feeling better looking better than living better well guys it’s been fun are you guys going to come back and hopefully talk about  of course is not the regular with U. S. all right guys I’d like to thank founding media the long center and also  Richards rainwater for sponsoring and S.  it’s been fun thank you guys so much for tuning in thank you Eric and Shawn for coming in hopefully we get to see you soon yeah right thanks guys