Why I Take Creatine and Rhodiola Every Day

Most coaches spend enormous energy optimizing their athletes. Programming, recovery protocols, sleep, nutrition — all of it gets scrutinized. Then those same coaches run on four hours of sleep, skip breakfast, and wonder why they feel half-present by the time the third session of the day rolls around.

I've been guilty of it. For a long time I treated my own body as an afterthought. Athletes first, everything else later. What changed wasn't a dramatic overhaul — it was two additions to my daily routine. I take 5 grams of creatine monohydrate every morning. I take rhodiola rosea 30 to 45 minutes before I step on the floor. Neither one is going away.

I'll tell you exactly why, and I'll back it with the research I used to make those decisions. This isn't supplement marketing. It's what I actually take, what the evidence says, and how I think about the standard I hold myself to.

I Started Taking Creatine for My Brain, Not My Body

A 2024 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Nutrition pooled 16 randomized controlled trials and 492 participants. Creatine supplementation improved memory with a standardized mean difference of 0.31 (p < 0.00001), processing speed with SMD = 0.51, and attention time with SMD = 0.31 (Xu et al., 2024). Sixteen trials. Nearly 500 people. That's not a single promising study you could write off as a fluke.

I didn't start creatine for muscle. I started it because I was running 50-plus athletes through training daily, and I needed to stay sharp from the first rep to the last. Coaching is a cognitively demanding job. You're reading movement, making real-time corrections, managing fatigue and energy across a large group, and communicating under pressure. Mental bandwidth matters.

The mechanism isn't mysterious. The brain's prefrontal cortex runs on ATP — the same energy currency your muscles use during high-intensity work. Phosphocreatine replenishes ATP rapidly. When creatine stores are higher, the brain has more fuel for sustained cognitive work, especially under stress or sleep restriction. Your muscles and your mind use the same system.

The 2025 work in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research moved this from theory to direct measurement. Smith et al. demonstrated that oral creatine monohydrate supplementation measurably elevated total creatine levels in the brain and produced corresponding improvements in cognition in adults (Smith et al., 2025). It crosses the blood-brain barrier. It does what the cognitive studies are claiming it does, mechanistically.

Is it working for me? I think so — though I can't run an RCT on myself. What I can tell you is that I've been taking creatine consistently for over 10 years. My training hasn't suffered, and I feel sharper through long days than I did before I understood the brain angle. The athletic performance data is almost secondary at this point. The brain case is strong enough on its own.

Does Creatine Actually Change Your Training Output?

The ISSN Position Stand on creatine is about as close to a consensus statement as sports nutrition gets. High-intensity exercise performance improves 10 to 20% with creatine supplementation, with the largest effects in repeated sprint efforts and maximal strength output (Kreider et al., Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2017). That's the foundation. But the recovery data interests me just as much.

A 2022 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine found that creatine reduced oxidative stress markers at 24 to 36 hours post-exercise with a large effect size: SMD = -1.37 (Doma et al., 2022). That's meaningful for any coach or athlete doing high-frequency training. Less oxidative stress between sessions means faster recovery and better training quality across a week or a block.

On the dosing question: a 2025 meta-analysis in PeerJ found that low-dose creatine, defined as 2.5 to 7.56 grams per day, produced an SMD of 0.88 for strength gains. That's stronger than what high loading dose protocols produced in the same analysis (Zhang et al., 2025). You don't need a loading phase. Consistent maintenance works better.

What does consistent actually look like in practice? I ordered Momentous creatine chews specifically to keep at work. There are days when my schedule doesn't allow me to get home to mix a serving before I'm on the floor. The chews solve that. They're portable, they require nothing, and there's no excuse to skip a day. Non-negotiable doesn't mean easy — it means you plan around the inconvenience.

The ISSN also confirmed long-term safety: creatine monohydrate is safe up to 30 grams per day for up to 5 years with no adverse effects on renal function in healthy individuals (Kreider et al., 2017). That concern gets raised often. The data doesn't support it.

Rhodiola Rosea: The Focus Supplement Nobody Talks About

Running a weight room with 50-plus high school athletes demands real mental presence. It's not the kind of work where you can float through a session on autopilot. You need to be locked in, reading the room, making quick adjustments, catching fatigue before it becomes injury. That's where rhodiola came in for me — and the research behind it is more interesting than most coaches realize.

Rhodiola rosea is an adaptogen. It doesn't work like caffeine. It doesn't spike you and crash you. The mechanism is more specific: salidroside, one of its active compounds, modulates the HPA axis and blunts cortisol response. Rosavin, the other key active, inhibits MAO (monoamine oxidase), which preserves dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine from being broken down prematurely (Tinsley, Galpin et al., British Journal of Nutrition, 2023). The result is a quieter, more sustained mental state — not a stimulant effect, but a buffer against the things that erode focus.

I take it 30 to 45 minutes before I step on the floor. The timing matters for onset.

A 2025 double-blind RCT published in Nutrients put rhodiola rosea directly to the test in an athletic population. Twenty-seven subjects supplemented with 200mg per day for 7 days. Results: bench press 1RM increased by 5.59 kg (p = 0.003), muscular endurance improved 39.6% (p < 0.001), and Stroop cognitive test scores improved 10.2 to 18.9 counts (p < 0.001) (Koozehchian et al., Nutrients, 2025). What makes that study significant is the concurrent improvements — strength and cognition in the same trial, same subjects, seven days. That's not an accident.

The reaction time data from Jówko et al. is also worth noting. Rhodiola supplementation shortened reaction time by 9.5% and increased correct responses by 16%, compared to 6.6% in the placebo group (Jówko et al., Journal of Sport and Health Science, 2016). Reaction time is a direct proxy for cognitive sharpness under physical demand. That matters on a coaching floor just as much as it does in competition.

The personal experience confirms the research direction, not the other way around. I'm not reverse-engineering a justification for something I already wanted to take. I've been taking rhodiola rosea for about a year and a half now. I found the evidence, started, and noticed the absence more than the presence. That's the best validation you can get outside of a controlled trial.

Why Burnout Is a Real Risk in Coaching — and What Rhodiola Does About It

A 12-week randomized trial published in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment enrolled 118 patients experiencing burnout symptoms. Those supplementing with 400mg of rhodiola rosea daily saw 89.7% report measurable improvement. Both emotional exhaustion scores and concentration deficits decreased significantly (both p < 0.001) (Kasper & Dienel, 2017). Nearly 90% improvement. That's not a marginal effect.

Coaches aren't immune to burnout. If anything, the profession is a setup for it. High emotional investment, high repetition, high volume. You're responsible for the outcomes of 50 other people's effort while managing your own. The same HPA axis dysregulation and neurotransmitter depletion that shows up in clinical burnout populations is present in coaches who grind year-round without managing their own recovery.

The adaptogen framing matters here. Rhodiola doesn't sedate you, and it doesn't stimulate you. It buffers. It keeps the stress response from running away in either direction. In a profession where you have to be just as sharp in August as you were in January — after a full spring and a hot summer — that buffering effect is worth a lot more than a caffeine spike.

Why does that matter for athletes? Because the quality of the room is a direct reflection of the quality of the coach running it. If you're fried, scattered, or running on fumes, the athletes feel it. Your presence and attention are resources your athletes draw from every session. Protecting those resources isn't optional.

Why Momentous: This Is About the Standard, Not Just the Product

Every Momentous product I use carries NSF Certified for Sport certification — which means every batch is independently tested for banned substances, heavy metals, and potency accuracy. Not the formula once. Every batch. That's the distinction most people don't understand about third-party testing. A certificate on the formula means nothing if the batch you're holding is different from the batch that was tested.

The creatine is Creapure-sourced, manufactured in Germany at 99.8% purity. That's the benchmark the research uses. The COA is publicly posted through Light Labs batch testing — it's not a claim, it's a document you can read. I looked at it before I ordered.

The rhodiola rosea is standardized at 3% rosavins and 2% salidrosides. That's the critical piece. Rhodiola products vary widely. A raw herb product with no standardization could have almost any active compound concentration. The studies I cited used standardized extracts in that benchmark range. If your rhodiola isn't standardized, you don't actually know what you're taking — and you can't compare your results to what the research found.

[PERSONAL EXPERIENCE] In 2025, Momentous pulled and scrapped product lots of Tongkat Ali, Ashwagandha, and their Collagen Shot after those batches failed internal quality standards. They disclosed it. Most supplement companies don't tell you when a batch gets pulled — it just quietly disappears. The fact that Momentous made that public is the kind of transparency I don't find elsewhere. It matters.

I hold my athletes to a standard about what they put in their bodies. I can't hold myself to a lower one. If I'm telling a kid that supplement quality matters and then using products that aren't independently verified, that's inconsistent. NSF Certified for Sport is the floor. Both of these supplements clear it on every batch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Athletes Take These Supplements?

Both creatine monohydrate and rhodiola rosea are NSF Certified for Sport through Momentous, meaning they're independently tested for banned substances on every batch. That said, athletes should always check with their strength coach and school athletic department before starting any supplement. I'd also strongly encourage coaches to consult a healthcare provider before recommending any supplement to athletes under their care. The safety data on creatine is extensive — ISSN confirmed safety at up to 30g/day for 5 years in healthy adults — but individual circumstances vary, and a medical professional should be part of that conversation.

Is Creatine Only for Building Muscle?

No — and that's the part most people miss. The 2024 Frontiers in Nutrition meta-analysis by Xu et al. pooled 16 RCTs across 492 subjects and found measurable improvements in memory, processing speed, and attention in adults who supplemented with creatine. The mechanism is identical to what happens in muscle: phosphocreatine replenishes ATP, and the brain uses ATP at very high rates. The brain case for creatine is at least as strong as the muscle case, arguably stronger for certain populations.

What's the Difference Between Creatine Powder and Creatine Chews?

The active ingredient is identical: creatine monohydrate. The only difference is delivery format. Chews are portable and require no mixing, which is why I keep them at work for days when I don't have time to go home before hitting the floor. If you're consistent with either form, the outcome is the same. The powder mixes well with anything, the chews travel well. Pick whichever one you'll actually take every day.

Why Does Standardization Matter for Rhodiola Rosea?

Rhodiola rosea products vary enormously in potency. The active compounds are rosavins and salidrosides — and without standardized extraction, you have no reliable way to know how much of either is actually in a given serving. The research I cited used extracts standardized to approximately 3% rosavins and 1 to 2% salidrosides. Momentous's rhodiola is standardized at 3% rosavins and 2% salidrosides, meeting or exceeding that benchmark. An unstandardized product might be doing nothing, or something different entirely. Don't guess on this one.