[Jay]

My personal opinion is that loading helps, i used creatine monohydrate for 4 months and saw a great improvement while using the loading phase, you may call this unwanted water retension, but i gained a serious amount of bulk, and strenght.

i have also used creatine monohydrate without the loading phase (the first time i used it), i didnt experience the same kind of bulk, and strenght gain, it also gave me side effects such as headaches, i followed the guidlines, drank plenty of water. Basically in my opinion your body needs time to adjust to creatine mono hydrate, so loading phase is a definate yes.

but at the same time, i didnt experience anywhere near the same gains from monohydrate as to what i gained for ethly ester.