Creator of the Flex Diet Cert & Phys Flex Cert, CSCS, CISSN, Assoc Professor, kiteboarder, lifter of odd objects, metal music lover. >>>>Sign up to my daily FREE Fitness Insider newsletter below
The HCL Tax
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There’s a small, well-dressed lab-coated pickpocket living on your supplement shelf. Clipboard in hand. Too-friendly smile. Smells faintly of artificial lemon and bad decisions. Every time you reach for “creatine HCl,” “buffered creatine,” or some trademarked chemistry experiment… …he skims a few bucks. That’s the HCl tax. For two decades, the supplement industry has been running the same play. Take one of the most studied ergogenic aids in history… …then whisper that there’s a more advanced version hiding behind the curtain. Better absorption. Sounds great. ...but it doesn’t exist. Creatine monohydrate absorbs at ~99%. Not “pretty good.” You don’t have a bioavailability gap. You have a marketing story being sold to you. Floor and ceiling are basically touching. There’s nowhere for a “superior” version to go. So the pitch pivots. “Yeah, but this one dissolves better” Cool, story Bro. Sugar does too. Solubility in your shaker bottle is not the same variable as absorption in your gut. Your intestines are not a BlenderBottle with a broken whisk ball. Let’s go head-to-head via science beeeotches. In 2025, Londoño-Velásquez and colleagues ran a randomized trial in elite athletes: Monohydrate vs HCl. Both groups improved. Only one group showed a significant increase in fat-free mass index. Monohydrate. Strength outcomes? Mostly similar. Lean mass? Advantage goes to the cheap stuff sitting quietly in the corner like a bouncer who’s seen every fake ID in existence. Now let’s talk money. HCl runs about 2–4x the cost. Performance stays the same… or slightly worse depending on what you care about. That’s not an upgrade. That’s a very polite robbery. I asked Dr Darren Candow about all these “advanced” forms. He didn’t hedge. Didn’t dance around it. He basically tossed the whole category into the trash: “Every day I lump these into quackery… just use monohydrate.” When someone who has spent decades researching this molecule tells you to stop getting fancy… …it’s probably time to stop getting fancy. What This Means Walk to your supplement shelf. Pick up the tub. Read the label like you’re auditing a shady tax return. If it sounds like it belongs in a pharmaceutical thriller… Replace it with creatine monohydrate. Done. Cost drops massively. Over a year, that’s real money back in your pocket for something that actually moves the needle. If you love creatine as much as I do, but want the actual legit science and best methods for how to use it, you will love the Complete Creatine Manual. 47 pages. Candow, Forbes, Rawson—all in there with direct quotes based on the research they have done for decades. Section 6 is where I break down every alternative form vs monohydrate and answer all the “but what about…” questions with actual data. Since this is the first release of it and you are a newsletter insider, you get $10 off this week. Code: DRMIKE at checkout Go to https://creatine.miketnelson.com/ Tomorrow I’ll send you the vegan creatine loophole that almost nobody coaches correctly. Much love, fewer stupid purchases, and better lifts, PS-Liquid creatine is where things go fully off the rails. Once dissolved, creatine slowly degrades into creatinine—especially with heat or low pH. Translation: You’re paying more… …for a pre-degraded version of the thing you actually wanted. That’s not innovation. That’s expensive waste in a bottle. Section 6 breaks that down too. Code: DRMIKE at checkout Go to https://creatine.miketnelson.com/ _____________________ Mike T Nelson CISSN, CSCS, MSME, PhD Mike T Nelson is a PhD and not a physician or registered dietitian. The contents of this email should not be taken as medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any health problem - nor is it intended to replace the advice of a physician. Always consult your physician or qualified health professional on any matters regarding your health. .. |
Dr Mike T Nelson
Creator of the Flex Diet Cert & Phys Flex Cert, CSCS, CISSN, Assoc Professor, kiteboarder, lifter of odd objects, metal music lover. >>>>Sign up to my daily FREE Fitness Insider newsletter below
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with creatine researcher Dr. Darren Candow from the University of Regina to break down what the research actually says about creatine for muscle, performance, and body composition—plus the newer interest in brain health, aging, and longevity. We dig into practical dosing (including higher-dose ideas for bone and brain), why timing probably doesn’t matter much, and what the data shows on safety, side effects, and common myths like hair loss....
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