Protein vs Creatine vs Omega-3: They Do Different Jobs

Protein vs Creatine vs Omega-3: They Do Different Jobs

Straight up, before anything else: we sell all three of these. That gives us an obvious interest in what a study like this says, so read accordingly. The paper is open access and linked at the bottom — go and check our summary against it. If we've bent anything, you'll be able to tell.

The question we get more than any other is some version of "if I only buy one thing, what should it be?"

Until recently the honest answer was that nobody had really tested them against each other. Plenty of trials compared creatine to a placebo, or protein to a placebo, but almost nothing lined the three up side by side. In March 2026 a network meta-analysis in Nutrients did exactly that — and the answer turns out to be that the question is slightly wrong.

What they did

Wang, Qin and Kim pooled 35 randomised controlled trials covering 1,211 trained athletes — average age 24.6, about 71% male — across resistance-trained, endurance and mixed-sport populations.

A network meta-analysis is worth understanding for a second, because it's what makes this paper useful. Ordinary meta-analysis pools trials of one thing against placebo. A network analysis uses the shared placebo arms as a bridge, so it can estimate how two supplements compare even when no trial pitted them directly against each other. That's powerful, and it's also the paper's main weakness — more on that below.

Three outcome domains were measured: strength (mostly 1RM tests and isokinetic dynamometry), endurance (time-to-exhaustion, time trials, VO2max) and recovery (creatine kinase, muscle soreness scores, functional recovery tests).

The result

Each supplement won one domain, and only one.

Supplement Strength Endurance Recovery
Creatine 0.46 (0.29–0.63) 0.05 (−0.26–0.36) 0.22 (0.01–0.43)
Protein 0.33 (0.17–0.49) 0.28 (0.08–0.48) 0.17 (−0.04–0.38)
Omega-3 0.16 (−0.06–0.38) 0.18 (−0.08–0.44) 0.40 (0.18–0.62)

Those are standardised mean differences against placebo, with 95% confidence intervals in brackets.

The ranking probabilities tell the same story: creatine came out best for strength (82.4%), protein for endurance (85.2%), omega-3 for recovery (88.7%).

How to read that table properly

Two things matter more than the winners.

First, look at the intervals that cross zero. When a confidence interval includes zero, the honest reading is "this might do nothing." Creatine for endurance: 0.05, interval from −0.26 to 0.36. That's a shrug. Omega-3 for strength: also crosses zero. Protein for recovery: crosses zero. Each supplement has at least one column where the evidence simply doesn't support a claim.

That is the actual finding. Not "creatine is best" — creatine is best at one thing and unremarkable at the others.

Second, these are modest numbers. As a rough guide, a standardised mean difference around 0.2 is small, 0.5 moderate, 0.8 large. The biggest effect in the whole table is creatine on strength at 0.46 — real, worth having, not transformative. Nothing here is going to change your training the way an extra year of consistent work would.

The doses that were actually used

This is the part most summaries skip, and it's the part you can act on. The trials in this analysis used:

  • Protein: 1.2–2.4 g per kg of bodyweight per day, for 4–12 weeks. Mostly whey.
  • Creatine: either 20 g/day for 5–7 days as a loading phase followed by maintenance, or simply 3–5 g/day for at least four weeks.
  • Omega-3: 1.8–4.0 g/day of combined EPA and DHA, for 4–10 weeks.

That omega-3 number deserves a hard look. Combined EPA and DHA of 1.8 grams or more is a long way above what a single standard fish oil capsule provides — many contain a few hundred milligrams. If you're taking one capsule a day and wondering why you notice nothing, dose is the first thing to check. Read the EPA and DHA figures on the label rather than the total fish oil weight; they're not the same number, and the gap between them is where a lot of marketing lives.

The same logic applies in reverse to creatine. Three to five grams a day, taken consistently, is the whole protocol. Loading is optional and gets you there faster; it isn't required.

Why omega-3 turned up in the recovery column

The authors attribute it to the anti-inflammatory action of EPA and DHA — modulating prostaglandin synthesis and reducing inflammatory cytokines. In practice the recovery outcomes were things like creatine kinase in the blood (a marker of muscle damage) and rated muscle soreness.

Which fits the pattern: omega-3 isn't making you stronger. It appears to reduce the cost of the work you already did.

What this study doesn't tell you

Five things, and they matter.

The head-to-head comparisons are the weakest part. The authors graded certainty as moderate for each supplement versus placebo, but low for the indirect supplement-versus-supplement comparisons, mainly due to imprecision. The rankings are a reasonable guide, not a verdict.

SUCRA percentages are not win probabilities in the way they look. "88.7%" doesn't mean omega-3 beats the others 88.7% of the time. It's a summary of where a treatment sits across the ranking distribution. Useful for ordering options; easy to over-read.

There were fewer omega-3 trials. The authors say so directly, and it shows in the wider confidence intervals. Its recovery result is the least well-supported of the three headline findings.

It's mostly men, and no combat sports. 71.4% male, drawn from resistance-trained, endurance and mixed-sport athletes. Not one combat sports cohort. Applying it to fight camp is inference.

Nothing here is about stacking. Every trial tested one supplement at a time. The authors flag combined supplementation as an open question — whether these interact, help each other, or get in each other's way is genuinely unknown from this data.

On quality: heterogeneity was moderate across all three domains (I² between 34% and 41%), and of the 35 trials, 23 were low risk of bias, 9 raised some concerns, and 3 were high risk. That's a reasonable evidence base, not a pristine one.

So what should you actually buy?

Buy for your bottleneck, not for the highest number in the table.

  • Struggling to add strength or power? Creatine. Cheapest of the three and the largest single effect in the study.
  • Not hitting your daily protein, or gassing out late in sessions? Protein. It was the only one to show a significant effect in two columns.
  • Training hard and arriving sore to every session? Omega-3 — at a real dose, not a token capsule.

And if none of those describe you, the honest answer is that none of them is your limiting factor, and your money is better spent on coaching, sleep, or food.

The products behind this article

We stock all three. The doses below are ours — compare them to the trial ranges above and decide for yourself.

Fight Lab Fitness supplements are dietary supplements, not medicines. These statements have not been evaluated by Health Canada or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Consult a healthcare professional before starting any supplement.

The study: Wang, Z., Qin, G., & Kim, B.-M. (2026). Comparative Effects of Dietary Protein, Creatine, and Omega-3 Supplementation on Muscle Strength, Endurance, and Recovery in Trained Athletes: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis. Nutrients, 18(6), 909. Read it here — open access.

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