The question "does creatine just put on water weight" needs an explanation before the water that you get retained in your body is fully understood. The bottom line is that creatine is an osmotically active substance which means it pulls water directly into your muscle cells and that is what increases protein synthesis.
If you have never taken creatine before or you have taken it before and have completed a cycle and stopped taking it for a month or two and are starting it all over again, you will more than likely put on about 3 to 5 pounds of weight during your first week but this is only water retention and not muscle.
Any gains in weight after the first week or two will more than likely be pure muscle which is as a result of you being able to lift heavier weights and do more reps. Studies that have been published show that unless you are going to make sure that you train with a high intensity you will be wasting your time taking creatine and any and all weight that you gain will only be water.
Creatine has now been on the market for over two decades and the amount of money for research on creatine just continues to rise every year. Creatine is listed as one of the most widely researched sports supplements and the good news is there are still no published pieces of literature that suggest it is unsafe.
We all need to keep in mind that your muscles are made of 73% water so increasing the amount of water that your muscles hold only in the first week or two during the loading phase of your creatine cycle is not a bad thing. The point is that your general water retention in your body will NOT increase from using creatine.
This was proven in a recent double-blind as well as a placebo implemented study which found after 3 months of taking 5mg of creatine the test subjects showed no noticeable or significant increase in body water. In fact, the creatine group that was studied were able to show greater gains in total body mass as well as fat free mass.
It should be noted here that there are some inferior grade creatine which may actually cause water gain that will result in a soft, puffy look. However, this can also be for several different reasons. The most important of these is the excess sodium that you might have in your body but also it is more often than found in these inferior creatine supplements as sodium is deliberately left in the finished product acting as preservative.
Creatine Water Weight