Someone always says it. "Just take creatine." Fine. Creatine is one of the best supplements ever made. It also does not do the job people think ketones do.
They are not fighting over the same seat. They work two different steps of the same machine. Here is the part nobody explains.
Short answer: creatine recycles energy your cells already made. Ketones are fuel your cells burn to make new energy. One is a battery charger. The other is gas in the tank. You are allowed to own both.
ATP is the only currency your body spends
Every rep, every step, every thought gets paid for in ATP. You carry a few seconds of it. That is it. A few seconds.
So the question is never how much ATP you have. It is how fast you can make more. There are two ways. Rebuild the ATP you just spent, instantly. Or burn fuel and build new ATP from scratch. Creatine does the first job. Ketones do the second.
Creatine is the battery charger
Spent ATP becomes ADP. Creatine sits in your muscle as phosphocreatine, hands a phosphate back to ADP, and it is ATP again. The enzyme is creatine kinase. No oxygen. No digestion. No waiting.
That is why creatine owns the first five to eight seconds of a max effort. The heavy single. The sprint. The jump off the ground.
Then it is empty. Phosphocreatine runs out in seconds and has to be rebuilt between efforts. Creatine makes the tank bigger and the refill faster. It never makes energy. It recycles it.
Take it anyway. 3 to 5 grams a day. The International Society of Sports Nutrition calls creatine safe and effective for strength and high intensity work. We are not here to argue with creatine.
Ketones are the gas
Beta-hydroxybutyrate. BHB. Your liver makes it when carbs run low, which is why people chase it with fasting and keto diets. Godspeed skips the suffering and hands it to you, as goBHB mineral salts.
BHB rides the blood into the cell, converts to acetyl-CoA, and runs the citric acid cycle in your mitochondria. Out comes ATP. Oxidizing one ketone body yields on the order of 22 ATP.
Two things make BHB strange and useful. It does not need insulin to get into a cell. And it walks straight across the blood-brain barrier.
Your brain already knows this. Three days into a fast it is running about a quarter of its energy on ketones. A few weeks in, up to two thirds. Exogenous BHB skips the three days. Blood ketones climb inside about 30 minutes of drinking it.
So ketones are not about the first eight seconds. They are about the next eight hours. Fuel for muscle and brain with no sugar spike in front of it and nothing to crash off the back of.
Creatine vs ketones, side by side
| Creatine | Ketones (BHB) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Recycles ADP back into ATP | Is burned to make new ATP |
| Where it works | Muscle, inside the first seconds of max effort | Muscle and brain, over hours |
| Needs oxygen | No | Yes, in the mitochondria |
| Crosses into the brain | Slowly, with long term loading | Yes, directly |
| Feels like | One more rep, a harder sprint | Clear head, even energy, no crash |
| Typical dose | 3 to 5 g a day, every day | 6 or more grams of BHB, on the days you need to perform |
So which one do you actually need?
Pick by what your day asks of you.
Heavy sets and short sprints. Creatine.
Focus, long sessions, 5am, airports, the 2pm wall. Ketones.
Both, because you are a human being with a job and a gym membership. Then take both. Creatine every morning. Ketones when it is time to go.
Godspeed is the ketone half. One stick carries 6 or more grams of goBHB bound to sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium, so the fuel shows up with the electrolytes you sweat out. No added caffeine. Paraxanthine and theobromine for the lift.
FAQ
Are ketones better than creatine?
Neither is better. They do different jobs. Creatine recycles ATP inside the first seconds of hard effort. Ketones are a fuel your cells burn to make new ATP over hours, and they reach the brain. For max strength, creatine. For sustained energy and focus, ketones.
Can I take creatine and ketones together?
Yes. They work on different steps of energy production and there is no known interaction. Plenty of athletes take creatine daily and ketones before training or work.
Do ketones replace creatine for strength?
No. Creatine is the better studied option for max strength and power. Ketones are a fuel, not a phosphate buffer.
Do exogenous ketones put me in ketosis?
They raise blood ketone levels for a few hours. That is nutritional ketosis by the number, not the same thing as a ketogenic diet, and it does not require one.
Is BHB safe?
BHB is a molecule your own liver makes every day. The salts in Godspeed are goBHB, a GRAS ingredient. Not for children, or anyone pregnant or nursing.
Sources
- Kreider RB et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017.
- Stubbs BJ et al. On the metabolism of exogenous ketones in humans. Front Physiol. 2017;8:848.
- Phosphocreatine and the creatine kinase reaction, standard biochemistry references.
- Ketone body metabolism and brain fuel use during fasting, standard biochemistry references.
