Effects of creatine availability on skeletal muscle metabolism

Nutritional strategies which increase energy substrate availability enhance exercise capacity and affect cell signalling and muscle morphology. The co-ingestion of carbohydrate with creatine has been shown to enhance both intramuscular creatine as well as glycogen storage, with the former being thoroughly investigated with respect to resistance-based exercise. Despite evidence of synergy, the direct performance benefits of this co-supplementation strategy on endurance-based exercise and its metabolic effect(s) on cellular signalling remained to be investigated. The work comprising this thesis represents a series of independent yet related studies that determined the effects of manipulating creatine along with carbohydrate (glucose) and/or insulin availability using both in vivo (human) and in vitro (rodent cell lines) models to better understand creatine‘s role in metabolism and performance.