Can You Take Creatine and Caffeine Together? Experts Weigh In

If you take supplements before or after you train, you probably have a very clear goal in mind — make your workouts as effective as possible. Whether you’re opting for the best creatine supplements alone or want to stack it with other supps, you’ll want to consider how each ingredient interacts with the others.

In the case of the classic energy boosters creatine and caffeine, both are meant to give your workout an edge by delaying fatigue. But do creatine and caffeine cancel each other out? Here’s everything you need to know about how creatine interacts with caffeine — and whether (and when) you should take both at the same time.

Editor’s note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. It’s always a good idea to talk to your doctor before beginning a new fitness, nutritional, and/or supplement routine. Individual needs for vitamins and minerals will vary.

Side Effects of Taking a Combination of Creatine and Caffeine

You take caffeine for that general wake-me-up energy boost, and you take different types of creatine for a more subtle (but just as important) boost — it gives your body more of what you need to create energy in those crucial, high-intensity lifting sessions.

In study after study, creatine monohydrate has been found to play a role in helping increase overall strength, packing on lean muscle mass, and improving things like coordination, motor control, and mental acuity. (1)(2)(3)(4) These are all critical when you’re about to chase down a PR on the lifting platform.

According to certified nutrition coach Jesse Zucker, “Creatine supplements are highly recommended for strength and power athletes since they boost ATP and energy. Maximizing muscle creatine levels can enhance performance in repetitive, high-intensity exercise by up to 20 percent, leading to faster sprints, heavier lifts, more reps, and long-term gains.” (5)

For its part, caffeine isn’t just a regular old but-first-coffee pick-me-up. It can also be a helpful part of enhancing your gym performance (hence it’s presence in so many of the best pre-workout supplements). Caffeine may have a positive impact on muscle strength, jump height, and endurance during training. (6)

Cisgender men may also receive a boost of max upper body strength and power from caffeine. (7)(8) There have not been many studies on people of other genders with caffeine and strength training, but there’s not necessarily reason to believe these impacts would be specific to only one gender. (7)

Put creatine and caffeine together, and you’ve got a potentially powerful combo for chasing your next PR. But are there any creatine and caffeine side effects that arise when you take them together? What does creatine do when caffeine is also in your system?

Here’s what we know about creatine and caffeine interaction. Some research has examined the impacts of taking a pre-workout including creatine, caffeine, and other ingredients, like B vitamins and beta-alanine. This research suggested that the pre-workout mix did indeed improve muscular endurance and increased perceived energy during the workout. (9)

Similarly, research on a pre-workout mix of creatine, caffeine, and amino acids suggested that the mix effectively helped improve anaerobic performance. (10) Another study on sprinters suggested that 5 days of creatine loading followed by taking 6 milligrams per body weight of caffeine may enhance peak power production more than creatine alone. (11)

Combining caffeine with creatine may decrease an athlete’s rate of perceived exhaustion (RPE) when they’re running to the point of exhaustion — meaning they may be able to run longer, harder — when compared to taking creatine without caffeine. (12) That’s a point in favor of taking the two in combination.

Some research does suggest that while creatine supplementation on its own can help increase muscle phosphocreatine levels and performance in high-intensity exercise, taking creatine with caffeine may negate these benefits. (13) This is a point against combining the two in the battle of creatine vs. pre-workout, but it’s important to note that newer research says that they don’t seem to negatively interact at all. (14)

Creatine loading before caffeine intake doesn’t seem to negatively affect workout performance. (15)(16) But some research suggests that consistently supplementing with caffeine during creatine loading may negate the positive impacts of creatine on its own. (15)

This potential cancellation in effectiveness might lie in the possibility of unwanted gastrointestinal side effects of mixing creatine and caffeine. (15)(14) Some research also suggests that possible interference effects with caffeine and creatine might come from opposite impacts on muscle relaxation time. (15)(17) Creatine may help muscles relax faster while caffeine seems to increase relaxation time. (17) 

But again, there is more (new) research suggesting that there’s no problem with the combination. According to BarBend expert reviewer and certified nutrition coach Amanda Capritto, “Creatine is a great addition to any pre-workout concoction. Previous (scarce) research suggested that creatine and caffeine may negatively interact with each other, but newer research has largely debunked that myth. (14) With proper dosing, creating provides several performance benefits, including increased muscle strength, power, and sprinting performance.”

[Related: Best Creatine Gummies]

Best Practices When Mixing Creatine and Caffeine

If you’re going to combine creatine and caffeine, you’ll want to optimize your timing for both.

Here’s how to go about it:

• Taking Creatine Alone: For increased energy, recovery, muscle mass, and mental sharpness, consider supplementing with between 3 and 5 grams of creatine per day, taken between 20 and 30 minutes before your workout.
• Taking Caffeine Alone: For optimal energy, strength, and endurance benefits, consider supplementing with between 2 to 3 milligrams of caffeine per body weight, taken between 10 and 60 minutes before your workout (depending on the method of consumption).
• Taking Creatine Combined With Caffeine: To combine the optimal times of effectiveness before your workout, consider taking the pre-workout with creatine 20 to 30 minutes before your training session. You can also toss creatine in with your regular pre-workout, or scoop some into your post-workout shake.
  • To make sure you’re optimizing the benefits while minimizing any potential negatives, you may want to reduce the caffeine (or take it out of the equation entirely) if you’ve got high blood pressure, anxiety, or have a sensitive stomach.
  • If you’re concerned about the gastrointestinal impacts of the combination, take note of your response to caffeine alone. Then, on a separate series of days, take note of your response to creatine alone.
    • Combine low doses to start with (less than 150 milligrams of caffeine and around 3 milligrams of creatine).
    • If it agrees with your body, you can raise your doses to higher levels (pre-workouts average around 200 milligrams of caffeine, and the upper level of suggested daily creatine intake is 5 milligrams).

[Related: Does Creatine Expire?]

Benefits and Drawbacks of Creatine With Caffeine

Want to tl;dr on whether you should toss in creatine with your pre-workout or just stick to taking them separately? Here are the biggest potential benefits and drawbacks to take into account.

Creatine and Caffeine FAQs

References

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2. Delpino FM, Figueiredo LM, Forbes SC, Candow DG, Santos HO. Influence of age, sex, and type of exercise on the efficacy of creatine supplementation on lean body mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. Nutrition. 2022 Nov-Dec;103-104:111791. doi: 10.1016/j.nut.2022.111791. Epub 2022 Jul 8. PMID: 35986981.
3. Wu SH, Chen KL, Hsu C, Chen HC, Chen JY, Yu SY, Shiu YJ. Creatine Supplementation for Muscle Growth: A Scoping Review of Randomized Clinical Trials from 2012 to 2021. Nutrients. 2022 Mar 16;14(6):1255. doi: 10.3390/nu14061255. PMID: 35334912; PMCID: PMC8949037.
4. Roschel H, Gualano B, Ostojic SM, Rawson ES. Creatine Supplementation and Brain Health. Nutrients. 2021 Feb 10;13(2):586. doi: 10.3390/nu13020586. PMID: 33578876; PMCID: PMC7916590.
5. Kreider RB, Kalman DS, Antonio J, Ziegenfuss TN, Wildman R, Collins R, Candow DG, Kleiner SM, Almada AL, Lopez HL. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017 Jun 13;14:18. doi: 10.1186/s12970-017-0173-z. PMID: 28615996; PMCID: PMC5469049.
6. Berjisian E, Naderi A, Mojtahedi S, Grgic J, Ghahramani MH, Karayigit R, Forbes JL, Amaro-Gahete FJ, Forbes SC. Are Caffeine’s Effects on Resistance Exercise and Jumping Performance Moderated by Training Status? Nutrients. 2022 Nov 16;14(22):4840. doi: 10.3390/nu14224840. PMID: 36432526; PMCID: PMC9692585.
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