When you eat, your body releases insulin, which helps muscle cells pull more potassium from your blood by putting more pumps on their surface—this keeps your muscles working smoothly after meals.

When rats are given insulin, a specific part of a pump in their muscle cells moves from inside the cell to the outer membrane, but another similar part stays where it is.

When rats are given insulin, a specific part of a pump in their muscle cells (called the beta 1 subunit) becomes more active and shows up more in the cell’s outer layer, but another similar part (beta 2) stays the same.

When insulin is present, it tells muscle cells to pump more sodium and potassium around, which creates a better environment for the cell to pull in more creatine — a compound that helps muscles store energy.

When insulin is present in rat muscle cells, it makes a special pump work harder to move salt in and out of the cells—but if you block certain cleanup enzymes in the cell, the pump doesn’t speed up anymore, which suggests insulin uses those enzymes to turn the pump on.

Insulin helps your muscles take in more creatine by making blood flow better and boosting a pump-like system in muscle cells, which helps bring in more nutrients.