Are Creatine and Caffeine Dangerous Together?

Creatine or caffeine—or both?

Both increase energy, both enhance exercise performance; yet, both do so in vastly different ways, begging the question: should I mix creatine with caffeine for a more comprehensive energizing effect?

Or is it dangerous to mix the two together?

After all, I don’t want to be too energized!

As virtually everyone who has taken either creatine or caffeine (or both) knows, the risk of becoming “too energized” isn’t something you should necessarily worry about—unless you’re being force-fed caffeine megadoses (upwards of 300+ mg) by your go-to workout supplements. ¹

Rather, the potential risks that people worry about while mixing creatine and caffeine have more to do with how this combination affects your hydration levels, your nutrient levels, your overall metabolic performance, and so on.

Do creatine’s and caffeine’s bio-effects add on top of one another, or do they compete with one another, resulting in weaker benefits all-around?

Is it better to take creatine and caffeine separately? Together? Or should I avoid one altogether if I’m taking the other?

In this article, we cover the pros and cons of mixing creatine and caffeine, as well as the best creatine + caffeine supplement combo: Performance Lab® Pre and Stim.

But before we get into that, let’s first address the key distinction between creatine’s natural energy benefits and caffeine’s stimulatory effects.

Creatine vs. Caffeine: What’s the Difference?

Virtually everyone knows that creatine and caffeine, two energy-boosting compounds, are different. But exactly how are these two compounds different, if both are claimed to boost energy?

For one, they are structurally different, with creatine serving as a “phosphate donor” for the production of ATP energy, whereas caffeine is structurally similar to adenosine, a multifunctional molecule that binds to adenosine receptors to slow down neuron cell activity.

These structural differences facilitate functional differences in how creatine and caffeine “boost energy,” as well as the type of energy they boost:

• Creatine – as a phosphate donor, creatine assists with the conversion of adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the basic energy-carrying unit found in the cells of all living things that fuels muscle contractions and many other metabolic processes. ²
• Caffeine – a psychostimulatory “drug” naturally present in many dietary food sources, such as coffee beans and green tea leaves, that binds to adenosine receptors to block the fatigue-promoting effects of adenosine, resulting in heightened mental arousal and focus. ³

Essentially, creatine works by fueling the natural production of cellular ATP energy, a non-stimulatory energy-carrying unit that fuels muscle contractions and many other bioenergetic reactions. ⁴ 

Caffeine, on the other hand, “hijacks” the body’s fatigue-promoting neurochemical process to instead promote elevated arousal, alertness, and attention—hence why caffeine is typically viewed as a “drug,” despite it being a naturally-sourced dietary compound.

Bodybuilding Benefits of Creatine

The advantages of caffeine are well-understood:

You consume some caffeine, whether by drinking a cup of coffee or ingesting any other caffeine-laden consumable, and your mood and energy levels acutely, albeit temporarily, rise.

However, the health and fitness benefits of creatine are more nuanced and expansive. Briefly, creatine benefits bodybuilders, as well as both aerobic and anaerobic athletes, by:

• Increasing muscle mass and strength in a shorter amount of time as compared to strength-training without creatine, likely as a result of creatine’s promotion of ATP production and protein synthesis. ⁵
• Buffering lactic acid accumulation that’s typically associated with the muscular “burning” sensation late in one’s workout or set, as the body’s natural energy (e.g., creatine, glycogen, etc.) reserves are depleted. ⁶
• Improving cognitive performance in the areas of short-term memory and intelligence/reasoning, even among healthy individuals without any prior cognitive impairment—though aging and stressed individuals may particularly benefit from supplementing creatine for cognition. ⁷

What most exercisers and athletes notice with creatine is a greater capacity to work out harder for longer before hitting muscle exhaustion and failure.

With that in mind, the short-term performance advantages of caffeine naturally seem like an appealing complement to creatine’s more long-term benefits.

Can I Take Creatine with Caffeine?

The short answer: yes.

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Below, we’ll get into why people say it’s bad to mix creatine and caffeine, but for now, let’s set the record straight: it’s okay to take creatine with caffeine.

Many do it, enjoying the short-term rush of caffeine while experiencing long-term increases in muscle mass and strength gains that are likely attributed to creatine. ⁸

With that in mind, if given the choice between creatine and caffeine (and, for whatever reason, you have to only choose one), creatine is the more advantageous, at least in terms of long-lasting strength and fitness. Not to mention that creatine provides a more “natural” and healthy source of muscle-fueling energy.

However, even still, many exercisers do find immense value in, say, pre-workout caffeine, which may help stimulate exercise performance as well as thermogenic fat loss.

Yet, this all isn’t to say that there are zero possible downsides to stacking the two. While there are more pros than cons to stacking creatine with caffeine, there are some potential cons, which, again, we’ll cover below.

Pros and Cons of Mixing Creatine and Caffeine

There are pros and cons to taking either creatine or caffeine, respectively. And there are pros and cons specific to the combination of taking both creatine and caffeine at the same time.

The following is mostly focused on taking creatine and caffeine together, though some of the independent pros and cons associated with either are worth consideration here, too:

Pros

• Creatine and Caffeine Boost Energy via Independent Biomechanisms: because creatine and caffeine take separate approaches to enhance energy and performance, their effects seem to add on top of one another, rather than compete for the same bio-pathways.
• Creatine and Caffeine Provide Both Short- and Long-Term Benefits: whereas creatine gradually accumulates within muscle tissue, requiring some time before reaching its peak, caffeine acts instantaneously, making the benefits of this combination both gradual and immediate.
• Creatine and Caffeine Assist with Body Composition Improvements: while creatine promotes long-term muscle mass gains, elevating the body’s resting fat-burning metabolism, ¹⁰ caffeine provides acute thermogenic calorie-burning benefits during exercise. ¹¹

Cons

• Creatine and Caffeine Contribute to Dehydration: it’s commonly recommended to “drink more water” while taking creatine, due to the organic compound’s influence on muscular water retention. Likewise, caffeine’s well-known diuretic effect can further increase risk of dehydration when combined with creatine—though research finds that many of these concerns are largely unwarranted. ¹²
• Creatine and Caffeine Have Been Associated with Gastric Discomfort: one study on the combined effects of creatine and caffeine on a sample size of 54 physically active males noted a few reports (four subjects) of mild gastrointestinal discomfort, which isn’t uncommon for creatine supplementation in general. ¹³

Best Way to Stack Creatine with Caffeine

Any conversation on combining creatine and caffeine typically presumes that you’re taking these supplements to enhance exercise performance—meaning you’re likely looking to take them in a pre-workout context. For caffeine at least, this is most certainly the case.

For creatine, however, it’s largely believed that when you take creatine matters very little, so long as you’re getting enough creatine daily.

Though some research suggests that creatine timing matters, as one study has found that “protein or creatine ingestion proximate to resistance-training sessions may be more beneficial for increasing muscle mass and strength than ingestion of protein or creatine at other times of the day…” ¹⁴

With that in mind, the best strategy for taking creatine and caffeine seems to involve taking them together immediately before exercise—or, at the least, to take caffeine prior to exercise and creatine either right before or right after exercise.

Conclusion

Stacking creatine and caffeine is one of the easiest strategies to simultaneously boost your muscle and strength gains (à la creatine) while acutely enhancing your mental and physical performance (à la caffeine).

With the right combination of creatine and caffeine, too, you may do so safely, with minimal risk of side effects typically associated with either creatine or caffeine.

Powered by pure, easy-to-absorb creatine, such as Creapure®, Performance Lab® Pre is not only a healthy, effective pre-workout on its own, but it works quite well with the nootropic-enhanced naturally sourced caffeine found in Performance Lab® Stim.

Whether taken alone or together, these two all-natural, vegan-friendly, eco-friendly formulas may help you elevate your exercise performance for an all-around boost to your health and fitness.