Five grams per serving: a new creatine monohydrate capsule launch keeps the ingredient in the solid dosage form where the published literature places its stability, and out of the solution chemistry that has defeated stable beverage formats at effective doses.
Sports Research, a health and wellness company, announced on August 27, 2026 that it has launched its new Creatine Capsules at Costco and on Amazon, which the company describes as the newest addition to its growing creatine portfolio [1]. One serving carries 5 grams of micronized creatine monohydrate, presented as capsules, according to the release, which was issued through PR Newswire from Los Angeles [1]. The company states that the capsules are designed for consumers who prefer convenience and portability, and that the product is Informed Sport Certified, Non-GMO Verified, and gluten-free.
Sports Research lists support for sport performance and strength, workout recovery, brain health, and gains in lean muscle among the product’s uses. The release qualifies that list: the uses are stated for the product taken in conjunction with regular exercise, and the brain health item is stated for aging individuals and vegetarians.
The company positions the launch against a category it says is moving past its long-standing link to bodybuilding and competitive athletics, into wider discussion of strength, recovery, and healthy aging. It describes that evolution as a broader opportunity, one that takes research, ingredients, and tools historically tied to sports performance and applies them to how more people approach everyday wellness.
“What I love about creatine is how much research there is behind it. The more you learn, the more interesting it gets. For years, most people associated creatine with athletes and muscle building, but the research continues to broaden that conversation. What excites me most is the opportunity to take what we’re learning and help more people understand how creatine may fit into their lives.”
What creatine monohydrate is as an ingredient
Creatine is a naturally occurring non-protein amino acid compound of the guanidine phosphagen family, found mainly in red meat and seafood [2]. Roughly 95 percent of the body’s creatine sits in skeletal muscle, with the remaining 5 percent or so in the brain and testes, and about 1 to 2 percent of intramuscular creatine is degraded to creatinine and excreted in urine, so the body needs to replenish about 1 to 3 grams of creatine per day to maintain normal, unsupplemented stores, depending on muscle mass [2]. About half of that daily need is met by the diet, where a pound of uncooked beef or salmon supplies roughly 1 to 2 grams [2]. A 2017 position stand from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) describes creatine monohydrate as “the most extensively studied and clinically effective form of creatine for use in nutritional supplements in terms of muscle uptake and ability to increase high-intensity exercise capacity” [2].
Format, not sourcing, is the constraint
Creatine is an unusual ingredient for a product developer in that its hardest decisions are physical rather than agronomic. It is an ampholytic amino acid and is not very soluble in water: creatine monohydrate dissolves at 14 grams per liter at 20 degrees Celsius at neutral pH, and while warmer solutions raise solubility, solubility has no influence on tissue uptake [3].
Stability is the bigger issue. Creatine is stable in solid form but not in aqueous solution, where an intramolecular cyclization converts it to creatinine, and that conversion runs faster the lower the pH and the higher the temperature [2]. The same position stand notes that creatine is relatively stable in solution at neutral pH (7.5 or 6.5), but gives degradation after three days of storage at 25 degrees Celsius as, for example, 4 percent at pH 5.5, 12 percent at pH 4.5, and 21 percent at pH 3.5, and identifies that conversion as the main reason creatine is sold in solid form [2]. A 2021 review in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition puts it more bluntly: the lack of solubility and stability in solution is why creatine is primarily marketed in powder form, and efforts to develop stable beverages carrying physiologically effective doses of 3 to 5 grams per serving have been unsuccessful [3].
For formulators, that pushes the category toward powders, capsules, tablets, and other dry formats, and it places creatine in the same stability and palatability territory as other awkward high-dose actives rather than in the low-inclusion world of extracts and micronutrients. The dose is the second constraint. The ISSN position stand puts maintenance at generally 3 to 5 grams per day once muscle stores are fully saturated, with some studies indicating that larger athletes may need 5 to 10 grams per day, and describes the quickest method of filling those stores as 5 grams of creatine monohydrate, or approximately 0.3 grams per kilogram of body weight, four times daily for five to seven days [2]. A 5 gram serving therefore lands at the top of the stated maintenance range, which turns a capsule line into a fill weight and powder flow exercise rather than a potency one. The same position stand notes that ingesting creatine with carbohydrate, or with carbohydrate and protein, has been reported to more consistently promote greater creatine retention, which is a co-formulation lever rather than a delivery-technology one [2].
Where the everyday wellness case comes from
In the European Union, the move the release describes is already written into the claims register, with conditions attached. Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 permits the claim “Creatine increases physical performance in successive bursts of short-term, high intensity exercise” only for food providing a daily intake of 3 grams of creatine, and only for foods targeting adults performing high intensity exercise [4]. Commission Implementing
Regulation (EU) 2017/672 then authorized a second claim, “Daily creatine consumption can enhance the effect of resistance training on muscle strength in adults over the age of 55”, usable only for foods targeting adults over 55 who are engaged in regular resistance training, with the beneficial effect obtained at a daily intake of 3 grams of creatine combined with resistance training performed at least three times weekly for several weeks at 65 to 75 percent of one repetition maximum load intensity [5]. That second authorization, not a market trend, is the concrete regulatory bridge from a sports ingredient to an everyday wellness ingredient in the EU, and it arrives with a defined population and a defined exercise condition rather than a general wellness permission.
The physiology behind the wider positioning is population-specific in the same way. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower intramuscular creatine stores, at 90 to 110 millimoles per kilogram of dry muscle, and may therefore see greater gains in muscle creatine content from supplementation [2]. Creatine supplementation can increase brain creatine content generally by 5 to 15 percent, and can reduce mental fatigue and/or improve cognitive function [2]. In older individuals, the position stand reads the evidence as suggesting creatine supplementation can help prevent sarcopenia and bone loss [2]. Those are the same two groups the release singles out in its own label footnote for the brain health item, aging individuals and vegetarians, which is a useful signal of where the evidence base for a wellness-positioned creatine product is strongest.
The capsules join the company’s Creatine Monohydrate powder line, which the release presents as a widening of its family of creatine products and as an approach to innovation that weighs both changing consumer needs and progress in nutrition science. The company also credits its growing creator community and social content with widening the creatine conversation to new audiences and turning education and discovery into rising consumer demand.
“Our goal is not simply to introduce another creatine SKU. We’re building a comprehensive creatine platform designed around how consumers want to use creatine, from format and convenience to quality and accessibility. The launch of Creatine Capsules at Costco is an important step in that strategy, and this September, we’ll build on that momentum with the exclusive launch of Creatine + Electrolytes at Costco locations across the Southeast.”
The company’s vice president of business development and strategy said in the release that the Costco relationship has grown from placing individual products to establishing a wider presence across wellness, and called creatine an important next chapter in that growth as the company expands both the products it brings to Costco members and the areas of wellness where it says it can make a meaningful contribution. The release also names a Creatine + Electrolytes product for an exclusive Costco launch across the Southeast this September, without stating its format or composition.
The firm added that it plans to keep developing the creatine platform through product innovation, wider retail distribution, consumer education, and experiences located where people already live, move, and connect.
Sources
- Sports Research, Sports Research® Expands Creatine Portfolio as the Category Evolves Beyond Traditional Sports Performance into Everyday Wellness, PR Newswire, August 27, 2026. https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sports-research-expands-creatine-portfolio-as-the-category-evolves-beyond-traditional-sports-performance-into-everyday-wellness-302862115.html (accessed August 29, 2026).
- Kreider et al., International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2017, 14:18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-017-0173-z (accessed August 29, 2026).
- Antonio et al., Common questions and misconceptions about creatine supplementation: what does the scientific evidence really show?, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2021, 18:13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-021-00412-w (accessed August 29, 2026).
- European Commission, Commission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 establishing a list of permitted health claims made on foods, other than those referring to the reduction of disease risk and to children’s development and health, 2012. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32012R0432 (accessed August 29, 2026).
- European Commission, Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/672 of 7 April 2017 authorising a health claim made on foods, other than those referring to the reduction of disease risk and to children’s development and health, and amending Regulation (EU) No 432/2012, 2017. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32017R0672 (accessed August 29, 2026).
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is provided for dietary supplement industry professionals and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
