Creatine Dosage: Should You Take 3, 5 or 10 Grams Per Day?
What Should You Believe About Creatine? A Lesson in Critical Thinking, Dosing & Personal Choice
Last week, we took a closer look at one of the most common questions people have about creatine:
What happens if it makes me gain weight—or at least makes me feel like I have?
But that question opened the door to something much bigger.
Because when it comes to health, nutrition and fitness, figuring out what to do isn’t always as simple as finding the “right” answer.
We have access to more information than ever before—and arguably less attention to give it.
We read a headline. Watch a reel. Hear something on a podcast. See a new study. Read a blog post like this one.
And sometimes the last thing we hear becomes the thing we act on, without stopping to ask:
How strong is the evidence? Does it apply to me? And does it actually matter for my goals?
Creatine is a great example.
So Where Did We Land Last Week?
Despite talking about possible weight gain, minimal water retention and bloating (that for majority is short lived), I still think creatine is a fantastic supplement and one we recommend to the majority of our clients.
Most people tolerate it extremely well.
But some people don’t love how they feel taking it. And if that’s you, that matters too.
If 5 g/day seems to cause a scale fluctuation or digestive discomfort you don’t like, you could try 3 g/day and see how you respond.
And if you ultimately decide the potential benefits aren’t worth the trade-off for you?
You don’t have to take creatine.
That’s not ignoring the research. That’s using the research alongside your own experience.
But now I want to throw another option into the mix.
What If 5 Grams Isn’t the Only Option?
For years, 3–5 g of creatine monohydrate per day has been a common recommendation.
Then my dad shared with me a new 2026 study that caught my attention.
Researchers studied 64 healthy, sedentary adults between 45 and 65 years old, including 40 women. Participants taking creatine received 5 g twice per day—for a total of 10 g/day—for 12 weeks.
Some participants supplemented without changing their exercise or diet. Others combined creatine with an exercise and weight-loss nutrition intervention.
The results were interesting.
Creatine supplementation without the exercise and diet intervention increased lean tissue mass, strength and muscular endurance, while also producing favourable changes in some blood markers and selected measures of cognition and memory.
When creatine was combined with exercise and the nutrition intervention, researchers also found improvements in lean tissue, body-fat percentage, strength and endurance, along with selected cognitive and memory measures.
The researchers reported that the supplementation was well tolerated.
Importantly, they described the individual cognitive and metabolic findings as exploratory, meaning we shouldn’t treat them as definitive proof.
Does That Mean 10 g Is Better Than 5 g?
No.
And this is exactly where the critical-thinking part comes in.
The study used 10 g/day, but it didn’t compare 10 g/day with 5 g/day.
So we can say that 10 g/day produced some interesting results in this particular group.
We cannot say:
“The research now shows you should double your creatine.”
It doesn’t.
That’s an important distinction.
But I’m Particularly Interested in the Brain
This is where 10 g/day becomes especially interesting to me.
Muscle is very responsive to creatine supplementation, which is one reason relatively modest daily doses work so well.
Getting more creatine into the brain appears to be more complicated.
A recent review of creatine and brain health concluded that creatine supplementation can increase brain creatine, but the response may depend on dose and duration. Researchers are investigating whether higher doses, longer supplementation periods or particular situations—such as sleep deprivation or mental fatigue—might produce greater effects.
And there are some intriguing findings.
For example, studies using relatively high single doses of creatine during sleep deprivation have found improvements in certain measures of cognitive performance.
But before we jump to “More creatine = better brain,” there’s another side to the research.
A randomized study giving healthy young adults either 10 g/day or 20 g/day for six weeks did not find significant improvements in cognitive performance.
In other words, the research on creatine and the brain is interesting—but it is not settled.
We still don’t know whether 10 g/day provides greater cognitive benefits than 5 g/day, or which people are most likely to benefit from higher doses. (I.e is there a difference in how creatine affects the brain in young vs older adults, and what is defined as “older”?)
That’s why I’m watching this research rather than turning it into a new rule.
What About the Safety of 10 g/day?
This is one area where the evidence is fairly reassuring.
Creatine is one of the most extensively studied sports supplements. The International Society of Sports Nutrition’s review of the literature concluded that short- and long-term creatine monohydrate supplementation has been shown to be safe and well tolerated in healthy people, with research including intakes up to 30 g/day for as long as five years.
[Read the ISSN Position Stand on creatine safety and efficacy.]
That doesn’t mean everyone needs 10 g/day.
It means that safety and necessity are two different questions.
The new 2026 study adds another useful piece: healthy adults aged 45–65 took 10 g/day for 12 weeks and the researchers reported that supplementation was well tolerated.
It’s also worth emphasizing the word healthy. Participants in this study were screened before participating, so I wouldn’t automatically apply these findings to someone with a medical condition or other reason to be cautious with supplementation.
So Should You Take 3 g, 5 g or 10 g?
This is where I think the past two articles come together.
There isn’t one answer that everyone needs to follow.
3 g/day may be a reasonable option if you want the benefits of creatine but don’t love how you feel on 5 g.
5 g/day remains a simple, well-researched approach that will make sense for many people.
And 10 g/day is an interesting option that is receiving more attention, particularly as we learn more about creatine’s potential effects beyond muscle. But we don’t yet have evidence showing that 10 g is universally better than 5 g.
Personally, the cognitive research is one of the reasons I’m interested in following the higher-dose research.
But “interesting” isn’t the same as “proven.”
And that’s an important distinction.
Don’t Let the Last Thing You Heard Make the Decision for You
This is really the bigger point of this article—and last week’s.
Research doesn’t usually give us one study that answers everything.
It’s more like pieces of a puzzle.
One study suggests a benefit. Another finds no effect. A new study uses a different dose. A systematic review pulls multiple studies together. Then researchers discover another question they need to answer.
Meanwhile, social media has a tendency to turn all of that into:
CREATINE MAKES YOU GAIN WEIGHT!
or
EVERYONE OVER 40 SHOULD TAKE 10 GRAMS OF CREATINE!
Neither is a particularly useful way to make a decision.
Instead, ask:
What does the overall evidence say?
How strong is that evidence?
Does the research apply to someone like me?
What am I actually trying to accomplish?
And how do I personally respond?
For most healthy people, I still think creatine monohydrate is one of the more useful supplements available.
But whether you take 3 g, 5 g, experiment with 10 g, or decide not to take it at all should involve more than the last headline you read.
And that lesson applies to a lot more than creatine.
Want Help Making Sense of the Information?
At Performance Institute, we don’t believe the answer is always the newest study, the latest supplement or the most popular approach on social media.
We start with you—your goals, current fitness and nutrition, lifestyle, history and what you’re actually trying to accomplish.
Then we help you figure out which strategies are worth your time and effort.
No cookie-cutter programs. No chasing every new trend. Just individualized training, nutrition coaching and practical guidance designed to help you Look Better. Move Better. Feel Better.