Written by Sandra Sorgini
Boxing Canada Athlete, 2022 Continental Champion and 2x Silver Glove Champion, Scalett Delgado relies on PVL Sports Nutrition to see her going 10 rounds with power, strength and speed! And since she is gunning for the Olympics she trusts clean, tested and approved products like Pure Vita Labs is known for.
Did you know that Creatine is the most scientifically proven supplement ever made? It is the world’s #1 sports supplement… a true knockout. It is a staple in EVERY male and female athlete’s supplement arsenal because well, it’s not just for the boys. It is marketed heavily for men focusing on its muscle building properties. However, creatine has a plethora of other potential benefits outside of muscle building and these benefits are important for everyone, especially women. Women generally tend to consume less creatine in their natural diet than men, this means supplementation can not only be beneficial but essential to maintaining energy output levels in the body and brain.
Why would a boxer or any athlete, male or female for that matter trust PVL Creatine to support their performance goals?
1) High Quality Creatine
PVL’s creatine is 100% Pure Pharmaceutical Grade Creatine. It is nano-micronized for the highest solubility and uptake and rigorously tested by athletes around the world. PVL Creatine is tested to USP pharmaceutical standards and Informed Choice certified, so it's been tested for banned substances. This is important to health conscious amateur athletes, professional athletes and the everyday athlete who desire clean, tested and approved products for sport or life.
2) Strength, Muscle Size and Performance
PVL 100% Creatine helps deliver power, strength, and speed. The body's liver, pancreas and kidneys also make creatine. Your body converts creatine to phosphocreatine and stores it in your muscles, where it's used for energy. Creatine supplementation can be effective in enhancing body mass in the body. Initially, creatine draws water into the muscle cells causing an increase in muscle mass. This also results in increased body weight. However, over time with a consistent training program, there is a significant increase in creatinine concentrations and muscle mass. Oral creatine use might allow an athlete to do more work during reps or sprints, leading to greater gains in strength, muscle mass and performance. Creatine is often used by athletes involved in high-intensity intermittent activities that require a rapid recovery during training and competition. Perfect for Boxing and the nature of the sport!
3) Injury Prevention
Creatine might reduce the frequency of dehydration, muscle cramping, and injuries to the muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons and nerves. Making it through 10 rounds requires a sports nutrition product that keeps Scarlett healthy and will keep you from sitting on the sidelines with an injury.
4) Cognition, brain and bone health.
Creatine supplementation might improve performance during cognitive tasks, especially in older adults. Creatine supplementation might help counteract age-related declines in skeletal muscle and bone mineral density.
5) Benefits of Creatine for Women
Creatine has been shown to be effective not only for muscle building and endurance purposes but in other areas such as brain health and development, and hormonal benefits.
Creatine helps your cells create more adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is one of the body’s main energy sources. This is the energy that allows your muscles to contract during exercise. By taking a creatine supplement, you are enabling your body to create more ATP efficiently. By efficiently increasing this cellular energy, you are able to potentially do a little more weight and/or more reps especially when you are doing high-intensity, short-duration exercises. When we do more reps and/or weight, we are essentially creating more lean muscle and burning more calories which means this is beneficial no matter what your goal is.
Since creatine is the body’s main source of energy, it is also the brain's source! Creatine levels in the brain naturally decrease during periods of mental activity and just like muscles fatiguing, so does the brain. This is why it is important to supplement with creatine.
Aging is a part of life, and for women specifically, this means they will likely go through many different stages including pre-menopause, pregnancy, and post-menopause. Throughout these stages, the hormones in the body fluctuate which also has a correlation with creatine levels in the body. More specifically, as women age, estrogen levels start to drop. When this occurs, there is more oxidative stress and increased inflammation which are contributing factors to loss of muscle, less bone density, and less strength. Creatine has been shown to countermeasure these and actually help women minimize these effects as they age.