Will strength training increase creatinine?

The answer is that it is indeed possible, but most of them are physiological increases that do not need to be worried about, and have nothing to do with kidney damage.

Creatinine itself is the end product of muscle metabolism. When you practice strength, you are building muscle. The total muscle mass is much higher than that of ordinary people who sit for a long time. Naturally, more creatinine is produced every day. If you go for a blood draw the day after you have just completed heavy leg or back training, the metabolic waste caused by micro-damage of the muscles cannot be eliminated in a short time. It is normal for the index to exceed the reference value. Two months ago, I met a young man who had just been practicing bodybuilding for half a year. He had been training for three weeks during the preparation period. His creatinine level during the physical examination at the company exceeded 15 units. He took the report and cried, saying that he was going to suffer from kidney failure. I asked him to reduce his daily protein intake from 2.4g per kilogram to 1.6g, stop extreme weight training for a week, and go back to the normal range for a reexamination. In vain, he couldn't sleep for several nights.

However, don’t take it too seriously. There are now many opinions in the sports medicine community that if you have hidden glomerular problems and continue to maintain high-intensity training for a long time + excessive supplements such as protein and creatine, which will overload the metabolic pressure on the kidneys for a long time, pathological creatinine may also occur.

In fact, it is easy for ordinary people to make a clear distinction. If you have a slightly higher creatinine, if you have never experienced swollen eyelids, edema of lower limbs, or foam in the urine that persists for half an hour in the morning, and have high muscle mass, then there is basically no need to worry. If you stop heavy weight training two or three days in advance for your next physical examination, your indicators will most likely return to normal. If you happen to suddenly start training hard recently, and you have taken a lot of supplements from unknown sources, and your creatinine is high and accompanied by the above-mentioned discomforts, then don't insist that it is a normal reaction to training, and quickly see a nephrologist to check if it is safe.

To give an inappropriate analogy, there are usually three people living in your house who produce one bag of garbage every day. Suddenly, two young men who are working out live in your home, and they produce two bags of garbage every day. As long as your sewer is not blocked, it will take two extra trips to empty it out. You cannot say that your sewer is broken just because there is more garbage, right?