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What causes cramping during physical activity? I bet you’re wrong like I was! Read this post to find out what it actually is. I love the solution!

ESPN ran a story this week about AJ Peterson, a top NBA draft prospect from Kansas, who spent his freshman season dealing with severe, debilitating cramping. Bloodwork after the season led his doctors to a conclusion: high-dose creatine supplementation was the cause.

The diagnosis is incompatible with human physiology.
Peterson described his "baseline level being already high" and his dosing making "the levels unsafe." That language almost certainly refers to serum creatinine, not creatine. Creatine degrades to creatinine, which gets filtered by the kidney, and this reliably shows up as elevated serum creatinine on routine bloodwork. It is a well-documented, benign artifact of creatine supplementation with no cramping mechanism.

The other interpretation is that they measured intramuscular creatine directly. There is no routine clinical test for this. Skeletal muscle creatine stores saturate around 150 to 160 mmol per kilogram dry mass and the excess is excreted. You cannot supplement past that ceiling into a pathological state.

The popular explanation for exercise cramps is dehydration and low electrolytes. This is not supported by data. Blood sodium levels, hydration status, and how much athletes actually drank during exercise are the same in people who cramp and people who don't. Researchers can trigger cramps in people with perfectly normal electrolyte levels and no fluid deficit at all. The sports drink at the sideline often helps, but probably because it buys time for the cramp to resolve on its own, not because the cramp was caused by dehydration. The better-supported explanation is that cramps are a fatigue problem, i.e. an overworked muscle losing the ability to regulate its own contraction. The fix is getting stronger and managing training load.

Creatine, when studied directly, has data directly contradicting what ESPN reported. A study of Division-1 football players found the creatine group had less cramping, muscle tightness, strains, and total injuries compared to placebo. In dialysis patients who frequently experienced cramps, creatine supplementation reduced cramp frequency by 60%.

What Peterson actually described, full-body cramping during September preseason conditioning severe enough that IV access was difficult, is consistent with exertional heat illness or exertional rhabdomyolysis. Peterson stopped the creatine. Preseason conditioning ended at the same time, along with the heat exposure, the training load, and whatever the initial physiological insult actually was.

ESPN and the doctors blamed the creatine. Both were likely wrong.

Link to our full creatine article in comments.

What questions do you have about creatine?

I have no clue why his acting and singing careers didn’t skyrocket?!

Edward Furlong knocked Whitney Houston off the No. 1 spot on the Japanese charts with his debut single in 1992. Fresh off Terminator 2, 14 year old Furlong released his debut album "Hold On Tight" exclusively in Japan - pure early 90s pop love songs built to capitalize on the film's massive success there. He later called it "the exact opposite of rock" and "a bad mistake." Japan didn't agree. The album included a Doors cover of "People Are Strange" and a string of sappy ballads - including this one, "I'll Be Waiting." The single was released as a rare 3-inch promo CD - a Japan-only format - packaged with a handwritten Valentine's letter from Edward to his fans. None of it was ever released in America. The whole chapter just quietly happened on the other side of the world while the rest of us had no idea. Follow for daily videos like this - music by anyone famous for anything but music. 🎧 #EdwardFurlong #HoldOnTight #Terminator2 #JapanPopStar #CelebrityPlaylist #90s #MusicHistory #PopCulture #DidYouKnow #Reels