Stopping creatine is one of the few questions in sports nutrition that was measured directly, with a needle in the thigh. Three small biopsy studies from the 1990s took muscle samples before, during and after a course of creatine, then kept sampling after the supplement stopped. They agree closely: the extra creatine drains away over about a month, and the muscle ends where it started — not below it.
This page sets out what each study measured and when, what else changes as the store drains, and what nobody has measured. It reports research; it gives no advice on whether to stop, per our editorial standards.
The washout, study by study
| Study | Who | What they took | What happened after stopping |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hultman 1996, J Appl Physiol | 31 men | 20 g a day for 6 days (about +20% muscle total creatine) | Declined gradually; no different from baseline 30 days after the last dose. Urinary creatinine raised throughout |
| McKenna 1999, J Appl Physiol | 14 volunteers (7 creatine, 7 placebo) | 30 g a day (6 × 5 g) for 5 days | Total creatine up by 22.9 mmol/kg dry mass at the end; still raised at 2 weeks, not at 4 weeks |
| Vandenberghe 1997, J Appl Physiol | 19 women | 20 g a day for 4 days, then 5 g a day through 10 weeks of training and 10 of detraining | Phosphocreatine returned to normal within 4 weeks of stopping |
Three designs, three populations, one answer: about four weeks. The 2017 position stand of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (Kreider et al., PMID 28615996) rounds the literature to "4–6 weeks for creatine stores to return to baseline". The wider range reflects how much was loaded and how the store was measured; none of the three studies above took longer than a month.
The shape matters as much as the time. The loss is gradual, not a cliff: Hultman's group reported the level declining gradually across the 30 days, and McKenna's biopsies still showed a raised store at two weeks.
Why it takes a month
Muscle holds creatine in two forms, free creatine and phosphocreatine, and turns a small, fairly constant share of it into creatinine every day. Creatinine cannot be turned back into creatine; it leaves the muscle, enters the blood and is excreted in urine. A raised store therefore drains at the rate it is broken down, not at the rate the supplement leaves the gut.
That is why two different clocks get confused:
- The blood clock is hours. After a single dose, plasma creatine peaked at about 1.9 hours in Persky et al. 2003 (6 men), and the body cleared it within the day. The same study found clearance slowed once muscle was saturated — the muscle had stopped taking more in.
- The muscle clock is weeks. The stored surplus is what the biopsy studies timed at about four weeks.
The Hultman team's urinary creatinine stayed raised throughout the washout, which is the drain made visible: the extra store was leaving as creatinine.
What else changes as the store drains
Body mass. Loading draws water into muscle along with the creatine, and the loading trials link it to the first kilogram or so of weight gain (see does creatine make you gain weight). The reverse is expected as the store drains. None of the three washout studies above reported body weight after stopping, so the size and timing of that loss is an inference, not a measurement.
Blood tests. Creatinine is the marker most kidney panels use. It runs higher on creatine because there is more creatine to break down, and it stayed raised during Hultman's 30-day washout. Anyone reading a kidney result taken soon after stopping is still looking at a creatine-affected number; the mechanism is on what creatine does to bloodwork.
Strength and training. This is the gap. Vandenberghe's women kept higher strength, work capacity and fat-free mass than the placebo group through 10 weeks of detraining — but they were still taking 5 g a day during that time. After they stopped, the study reported phosphocreatine falling back to normal within four weeks and did not report whether strength followed. No study found for this page randomised trained people to stop creatine and measured strength or muscle size over the following months.
Does stopping switch off your own production?
The body makes creatine in the liver and kidneys from arginine, glycine and methionine, and gets the rest from meat and fish. The International Society of Sports Nutrition puts the daily turnover at about 1–3 g, about half of it from the diet (Kreider 2017). The worry repeated on forums is that supplementing switches that production off and that it does not come back.
The position stand's answer is that no evidence has shown muscle creatine falling below baseline after supplementation stops, and that long-term suppression of the body's own synthesis "does not appear to occur". The biopsy data agree: every washout ended at the starting value, not beneath it.
Cycling
"Cycling" — weeks on, weeks off — is common advice on forums and brand pages. No trial found for this page has compared cycled with continuous creatine on strength, muscle or safety, so the question has no evidence either way. What the washout studies do establish is the arithmetic of a break: the store drains in about four weeks, and it takes about a week of 20 g a day or about four weeks of 3 g a day to refill (Hultman 1996; see creatine loading phase and how long creatine takes to work). A cycle of four weeks off therefore spends about as long empty as it takes to fill.
The honest summary
- Muscle creatine raised by supplementation returns to baseline in about four weeks — Hultman 1996 (30 days), McKenna 1999 (between 2 and 4 weeks), Vandenberghe 1997 (within 4 weeks). ISSN: 4–6 weeks.
- The decline is gradual; the store is still raised at two weeks.
- No study found stores falling below their starting level.
- Urinary creatinine stays raised while the store drains; blood creatine clears within a day.
- Not measured: weight loss after stopping, and strength or muscle size in the months after stopping.
Limits of this page
The three washout studies are small (14 to 31 people), from the 1990s, and measured stores by biopsy of one thigh muscle. They studied young, mostly untrained volunteers; older adults, vegetarians and long-term users may differ. The ISSN figure is a position statement drawing on this literature, not a new measurement. Search phrasing figures come from DataForSEO's US estimates for 2026-09-21.
Sources and dates
- Hultman E, Söderlund K, Timmons JA, Cederblad G, Greenhaff PL. Muscle creatine loading in men. J Appl Physiol 1996;81:232–7 — PMID 8828669, abstract read 2026-09-27.
- McKenna MJ, Morton J, Selig SE, Snow RJ. Creatine supplementation increases muscle total creatine but not maximal intermittent exercise performance. J Appl Physiol 1999;87:2244–52 — PMID 10601174, read 2026-09-27.
- Vandenberghe K, Goris M, Van Hecke P, et al. Long-term creatine intake is beneficial to muscle performance during resistance training. J Appl Physiol 1997;83:2055–63 — PMID 9390981, read 2026-09-27.
- Kreider RB, Kalman DS, Antonio J, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 2017;14:18 — PMID 28615996, full text read 2026-09-27.
- Persky AM, Müller M, Derendorf H, et al. Single- and multiple-dose pharmacokinetics of oral creatine. J Clin Pharmacol 2003;43:29–37 — PMID 12520625, read 2026-09-27.