You don’t have to take carbs every time you take creatine, but doing so might help your muscles soak up more creatine if you're trying to build strength.

For young, active guys taking creatine, adding carbs doesn’t seem to make it work better for boosting power, strength, or stamina—even though we thought insulin from carbs might help the body absorb more creatine.

If you take creatine with carbs after working out, your body absorbs about 25% more of it because the carbs raise your insulin, which helps shuttle creatine into your muscles.

Creatine might help your muscles store more glycogen, but only if you first do a workout that drains your energy stores — otherwise, it doesn’t do much for glycogen.

Taking creatine powder for about a week—first a lot, then a little—can boost the amount of creatine in your muscles by over 13%, which helps your muscles store more energy.

Taking creatine for five days boosts creatine in muscles, but doesn’t change how much glycogen (energy) is used during intense cycling in healthy young guys — so more creatine alone doesn’t help save energy stores during endurance workouts if muscles weren’t already drained.