Does Creatine Make You More Vascular? (5 Reasons Why)

Creatine makes you more vascular by relaxing your blood vessels. This allows more blood to flow through your veins to your muscles which makes you look more vascular. Also, creatine can help boost fat loss which increases vascularity.

In this article, we cover the effects of creatine on vascularity, how to take creatine for vascularity, the best creatine for vascularity, and much more!

What Does It Mean To Be Vascular?

Many bodybuilders dream of being lean and vascular.

Vascularity is where your veins are noticeably popping out your muscles across you body.

While genetics plays a big role in how vascular you can be, there are some factors which you can control, such as:

• Muscle size
• Low body fat
• Enlarged veins

Creatine can help influence those factors giving you a more vascular appearance.

5 Reasons Why Creatine Makes You More Vascular

Creatine Relaxes Your Blood Vessels

Creatine is a mild vasodilator.

In other words, it helps widen your blood vessels which allows more oxygen and nutrients to reach the muscle.

Since visible veins are a hallmark of vascularity, the wider your veins (from taking creatine), the more vascular you’ll appear.

Creatine Increases Muscle Mass

Creatine works by increasing the amount of energy available to your muscles. As a result, creatine helps make your workouts more intense.

This higher intensity exercise can lead to more micro-damage in your muscle tissue.

Our bodies respond to this damage by repairing the muscle tissue and making it bigger.

(This is a process called hypertrophy.)

So theoretically, creatine should help you gain muscle mass.

Well, a review of 22 studies compared the difference in muscle gain in creatine takers and non-takers.

The results showed that creatine takers put on an extra 1.37kg of lean muscle on average compared to non-takers.

But what does this have to do with vascularity? I hear you cry.

Well, when your muscles get bigger, your veins are pushed closer to the surface of your skin, which makes them pop out more.

As a result, you’ll look more vascular.

Creatine Helps With Fat Loss

Taking creatine alongside a consistent fitness routine and diet can help facilitate fat loss. 

In one study, participants took creatine alongside a training program for 4 weeks.

The results showed that the participants had significantly more fat loss when taking creatine compared to before the study.

Subcutaneous (i.e. below the skin) fat is the most common fat we have.

As you lose more subcutaneous fat, the fat between your skin and muscles reduces.

This increases the visibility of your veins and muscles, giving you a more vascular appearance.

Also, as we’ve already covered, creatine increases muscle mass. Since muscles require energy, the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn at rest which can further increase fat loss.

A calorie deficit is key to fat loss, so the more calories you burn the greater the fat loss.

Creatine Increases Performance Output

Creatine supplementation has been shown to increase performance output when training.

In one study, those who took creatine had a 3.7% increase in cycling power in a high intensity cycle test.

Performance output is important because it allows you to work harder for longer and recover quicker during your workouts.

This results in more calories burned, helping you achieve more fat loss which will ultimately give you a more vascular appearance.

Creatine Enlarges Veins

Creatine is a mild vasodilator, meaning it can cause your veins to open up and expand, which allows blood and nutrients to reach the muscle quicker making it swell.

This effect intensifies when you’re training hard as your heart rate (and thus blood flow) increases through the body.

This is essentially what a “pump” is, where your veins push to your skin’s surface giving your muscles a bigger appearance.

As long as you stay sufficiently hydrated, this is another reason which creatine can make you look more vascular.

Should You Take Creatine To Increase Vascularity?

Overall, creatine has a positive effect on vascularity, and the benefits outweigh the possibility of looking bloated.

That said, there are other supplements that have a more direct effect on vascularity like Beetroot Extract, L-Citrulline, L-Arginine and Nitric Oxide.

Let’s take a look at these in more detail.

Beetroot Extract

Beetroot extract contain a natural compound called nitrates.

Nitrates can perform like a natural vasodilator, causing your veins to relax and enlarge pushing blood and nutrients to your muscles more effectively.

L-Citrulline

L-Citrulline, often labelled as Citrulline Malate, helps the body create more nitric oxide and improve blood and nutrient flow to muscle tissue by relaxing veins.

 L-Arginine

This is another supplement that supports the production of nitric oxide in the body, leading to wider veins through increased blood flow.

Some users have also experienced improved circulation to reduce high blood pressure and narrowing of veins. 

Nitric Oxide

Nitric Oxide supplements includes L-Citrulline and L-Arginine, which increase nitric oxide production in the body.

This is a gas the body uses to widening your veins, increasing blood and nutrient flow to your muscles.

With all that being said, creatine is still a worthwhile supplement to take because it’s safe, cheap, and provides many additional benefits.

4 Benefits Of Being More Vascular

There are numerous benefits of being more vascular, including:

Harder Appearance

When you’re vascular, your muscles will be prominent with minimal fat covering them, giving them a rock-hard appearance.

Bragging Rights

Vascularity is arguably the most desired goal of the bodybuilding community.

It takes patience, discipline, and sheer effort to build a muscular body with your veins popping out.

You will be admired by many by being vascular.

Imposing Physique

With a vascular physique, you will stand out from your average gym bro and will get many looks from admirers.

Leaner Appearance

With prominent vascularity, you’ll have likely reduced your body fat percentage to single figures for men and low teens for women, giving you a lean appearance and noticeable muscle definition.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Does Creatine Make Your Veins Pop?

For your veins to pop out, you need to be carrying lots of muscle mass while having a low body fat percentage.

Since creatine can help you increase muscles mass and burn fat, you could argue that it helps make your veins pop. However, if you have a body fat above 15%, it’s unlikely to make your veins pop unless you have a pump from working out.

How Long Does It Take For Creatine To Make You More Vascular?

Creatine will help increase vascularity the most once your muscles’ creatine levels are full.

This can take a few weeks after you start taking creatine, so I’d expect to notice a difference after a month or so.

How To Take Creatine For Increasing Vascularity

So, you’re ready to bite the bullet and try out creatine to help with your vascularity.

But what’s the best way to take creatine?

Well, the important thing is to ensure you’re taking creatine consistently.

To simplify things, let’s say to take 5000mg of creatine daily.

(Ideally, after your workouts on training days!)

Then, once you’ve built more muscle and you’ve lowered your body fat, you might want to stop using creatine to minimize bloating.

Don’t worry!

When you stop taking creatine, your hard-earned muscle doesn’t just vanish.

You can maintain it for as long as you like, as long you train regularly and eat enough protein.

Best Creatine For Vascularity

My go-to creatine is Optimum Nutrition Micronized Creatine powder.

I’ve been taking 5g of the stuff after every workout for over 2 years now, and I have nothing but praise for it.

It’s cheap, effective, and dissolves easily so you don’t have encounter that nasty gritty texture that other creatine powders often have.

Also, I’m huge fan of Optimum Nutrition.

Their products are of the highest standard, and they’re trusted and respected all around the globe.

Check price and read more reviews of ON Micronized Creatine on Amazon.

(Or if you want an even more detailed breakdown of this product, then take a look at my epic review of ON Micronized Creatine.)

Conclusion

In summary:

• Creatine makes you more vascular by increasing muscle gain, fat loss, and by widening your veins.
• There are other supplements which are more effective at increasing vascularity, like L-Arginine and L-Citrulline.
• You should expect a difference in vascularity after taking creatine for a few weeks.

That’s all for creatine and vascularity, but should beginners take creatine? Or does creatine help abs?

Hope this helped!