The Common Cramp

      Most people have experienced a muscle cramp during exercise in one form or the other. Researchers have yet to figure out exactly what causes muscle cramps in healthy people during exercise. Cramps can occur during exercise, immediately after, or up to six hours after exercise has stopped. There are three main theories as to why people experience muscle cramping circulating among researchers. These include an imbalance of electrolytes, dehydration, and muscle fatigue. The electrolyte theory speculates that a significant disturbance in fluid or electrolyte balance, usually when hefty amounts of sodium are lost when sweating, causes a contraction of the interstitial fluid compartment around muscles and a misfiring of nerve impulses leading to a cramp. The dehydration theory proposes that the lack of hydration causes muscles to begin cramping. The muscle fatigue theory suggests that as your muscles get tired your nerves begin to misfire which causes them to eventually cramp up. Out of all these theories, most researchers believe muscle fatigue is the cause of muscular cramps during exercise, but nothing has been proven thus far.
On the other hand, there are ways to help subdue the onset of muscular cramps during exercise.  Those methods include:

·         Reduce Fatigue: Pace yourself appropriately based on fitness levels and environmental conditions to avoid overloading muscles prematurely. Also, train to match the distance, speed, or intensity of any athletic event to aid in avoiding cramps on the day of. Lastly, ensure you are adequately fueled with plenty of carbohydrates before you start events and that you fuel adequately during activity to avoid becoming glycogen depleted which can contribute to premature fatigue.

·         Intake a tad more sodium: This is a good idea if you experience cramping during or after periods of heavy sweating, in hot weather, later on during longer activities, or if you generally eat a low sodium diet. This can be done using sport drinks like Gatorade or Powerade due to their sodium contents as well as other electrolytes.

·         Stay Hydrated: Dehydration can disrupt the balance of electrolytes in the body which can cause cramps, drink water before, during, and after each exercise.
These are great ways to keep exercise induced muscle cramping at bay, however, there are also ways to help alleviate muscle cramping while it is occurring. One way would be to stretch thoroughly; you want to ensure you give that muscle enough time so that the muscle can adequately become soothed.  Another method is to simply slow down. When over exerting yourself you can cause muscular cramps, so when you have had or are having cramps lower the intensity of the physical activity you are participating in. Lastly, you can massage the effected muscle deeply thus causing blood to rush to the muscle and nourishing it, as well as making the muscle less tight. Although many things are still being discovered to this day about muscle cramps, we can rest easy knowing we have ways to avoid and subdue them.