How Much Water to Drink With Creatine, and Does It Dehydrate You?

You do not need a special water amount for creatine. Drink your normal daily goal, add back what you sweat in training as our guide on how much water to drink before, during and after a workout explains, and take each dose in a drink you were having anyway.

Gym advice runs from "a gallon a day" to "creatine dries you out". Below is what the main scientific review says, and where it says nothing at all.

How Much Water Should You Drink With Creatine?

No health body or sports-science statement we read gives a number. The 2017 International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand (ISSN), the main review of creatine's safety, sets doses in grams but no water amount. Your water need still comes from your size, activity, climate and sweat, as on any other day.

That gap gets filled with guesses: 3 L, 4 L, a gallon. None of them traces back to the ISSN review, or to the fluid statement of the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA), which says only that "at recommended doses, however, creatine does not compromise hydration status".

Gym Advice

• Drink 3 L, 4 L or a gallon on creatine
• Creatine dries you out
• Creatine causes cramps

The ISSN Review

• Doses in grams and no water amount
• No rise in dehydration
• No rise in cramping, or less of it

Taking It With Water

Mix each dose into a drink you already have, such as your morning glass of water or the bottle you take to the gym. Count that drink toward your day as usual.

The powder adds no fluid of its own. No source we read asks for an extra glass on top.

Loading and Maintenance Doses

The ISSN gives two ways to start, and only the loading route comes with a note about water.

Does Creatine Dehydrate You?

No: the ISSN review concludes that creatine "either has no effect or reduces the incidence of musculoskeletal injury, dehydration, and/or muscle cramping". NATA's fluid statement agrees that recommended doses do not harm your hydration. Both are summaries of earlier studies, so read them as the best evidence available, not a guarantee for every body.

Creatine does pull a little water into your muscles, as the section on water retention shows. It is easy to read that as water taken from the rest of the body, but the studies that measured hydration found no such loss.

What the Studies Tested

In one study the review cites, trained men who were already 2 % dehydrated exercised in the heat with creatine, and it "did not increase the incidence of symptoms or compromise hydration status". In another, creatine users on an American college football team had less cramping, heat illness and dehydration over a 4-month season than teammates who did not take it.

Does Creatine Cause Cramps?

The evidence points the other way. The ISSN review lists cramping among the problems creatine leaves unchanged or reduces, and it cites a paper titled "Putting to rest the myth of creatine supplementation leading to muscle cramps and dehydration". If you cramp in long, hot sessions, look at your sweat losses and your pace first.

NATA itself is careful about cramps in general. It says low body water "has been hypothesized to contribute" to exercise cramps, and that they "have now also been linked to other causes".

Does Creatine Cause Water Retention?

Yes, a little and for a short time. The ISSN review says creatine has osmotic properties "that help retain a small amount of water", and that loading "promoted a short-term fluid retention (e.g., about 0.5 – 1.0 L)". You may see that on the scale in your first week.

Some of that water goes into the muscle. The review cites a study in which creatine "increased intracellular water and reduced thermoregulatory and cardiovascular responses to prolonged exercise", the opposite of drying out.

The extra water does not upset your sweat-rate test either. You weigh in before and after the same session, as our sweat rate guide shows, so the loading shift sits in both numbers and drops out of the difference.

Creatine in the Heat and in Long Sessions

Use the same rules as anyone who trains. Creatine does not change the amounts, and none of the sources gives it a separate heat plan.

• A session over an hour: about 200 ml every 15 to 20 minutes, the NATA figure.
• Work or training in the heat: NIOSH advises 1 cup (8 oz) every 15 to 20 minutes for moderate work under 2 hours, and our page on water in hot weather covers the rest.
• Sweating for hours: sodium starts to matter, as electrolytes and sports drinks explains.

Do not stack extra litres on top as insurance. NATA says active people "should not consume fluid that exceeds their exercise-related body mass losses", and drinking far past them is how too much water becomes a risk.

Your Daily Goal With Creatine

Creatine does not change Glubbo's habit formula, and we add no creatine bonus. Your goal comes from your weight, activity, climate and sex, the same inputs as the water intake calculator.

On training days, each of them adds back what the scale says they sweated, at 1 to 1.5 L per kg lost. For Tom, a gym session that costs him 0.6 kg means 0.6 to 0.9 L more, about 3.4 to 3.7 L for the day.

That covers creatine too. If you notice signs of dehydration such as dark pee, look at your total drinks and your sweat before you blame the scoop; for the baseline itself, read how much water you need in a day.

What to Do Today

1. Take today's dose in a drink you were having anyway.
2. Find your daily goal and keep it; creatine adds nothing to it.
3. If you are loading, expect up to about a kilo (2 lb) on the scale in the first week and do not chase it with extra water.
4. On training days, add back your sweat loss.

To spread that goal across your day, with a glass that fits your dose time, use the water drinking schedule.