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“Cramp! Aaaargh! Cramp!” If you’ve never experienced the pain of a muscle
cramp be thankful. For most athletes and weekend warriors, pushing harder and
longer than they’ve trained for—or forgetting to hydrate properly—can bring
on an attack they won’t soon forget.
That Hurts!
The worst cramps I ever experienced occurred in the Furnace Creek 508, a team
bike race through Death Valley covering 508 miles and over 30,000 vertical feet
of climbing. My three teammates and I alternated 30-minute shifts, flat-out,
for 23 hours. In between shifts we huddled in a van, trying to recover and
stay hydrated. About 75 miles from the finish, my quads cramped as I got off
the bike after a particularly hard climb. When I tried to stretch the cramp
away by pulling my heel to my butt, my hamstrings cramped too. Soon I was
writhing by the side of the road, fully seized from my ankles to my armpits.
It wasn’t much fun for me but provided a certain amount of comic relief for
my teammates.
And here’s the real bummer—in spite of 50 years of studies, science still
doesn’t know what causes cramps. Theories run the gamut from dehydration, to
sodium depletion, to insufficient potassium or magnesium, to not enough training
and a host of other reasons too exotic to name. Still, long and painful
experience with cramping has at least provided some guidelines for
relief.
Try Different Remedies
As the late George Sheehan, long-time running columnist, used to say, “We are
all an experiment of one.” Because science doesn’t have all the answers, and
because the causes of cramping seem so individual, your best bet is to find
out what works or doesn’t work for you. Keep a training log and note each
incident of cramping. Over time, you’ll be able to look back at your training
and nutrition before an episode of cramps and find common threads. Do you
cramp when you are attempting events significantly longer than you’ve trained
for? Do you cramp only in hot weather? Are you less susceptible when you’ve
eaten large quantities of a certain food—maybe bananas—in the weeks prior to
the race? Charting tendencies like this can help you solve your own unique
cramping problem.
Pound Fluids
Although we aren’t sure that dehydration, by itself, leads to cramps, it makes
sense to hydrate fully during long endurance events simply because proper fluid
intake is so crucial to performance. The loss of as little as two percent of
your body weight as perspiration can lead to significant reductions in performance.
If staying hydrated has the subsidiary benefit of reducing the incidence of
cramps, so much the better.
Increase Sodium Intake
Every pound of sweat you perspire away during endurance exercise contains 200
to 400 mg of sodium. Most people get more than enough sodium in their daily diets
to counteract this amount of sweat loss. For instance, one chicken broth cube
contains more sodium than you’d sweat out in four or five hours of hard exercise.
But repeated days of exercise in the heat can deplete the body of sodium, especially
in people who limit their sodium intake hoping to prevent high blood pressure.
So according to Susan I. Barr PhD, Professor of Nutrition at the University of
British Columbia and a long distance cyclist, if you often cramp in hot weather,
try increasing your sodium intake for a two or three week trial period. Simply
using a salt shaker at meals is usually sufficient. Barr maintains that a short
period of consuming more salt won’t affect blood pressure in the
long term.
Prepare Adequately for the Event
Many cases of cramping can be traced to insufficient preparation for the event or
workout you take. If your longest training ride is 30 miles and you tackle a hilly
century (100 miles), cramps are inevitable for most athletes. Even highly trained
elite athletes suffer when they exceed their preparation. And it’s not just distance
that can get you, increased intensity is also a culprit. Pushing significantly
harder than you’re used to can bring on cramps even if you’re well trained for
the distance.
What About Creatine?
Creatine is a popular food supplement used by power athletes to increase body mass
and performance in short, repeated efforts like running the floor in basketball or
the fast-and-slow efforts of soccer. When creatine supplementation became popular
several years ago, athletic trainers noticed an increased incidence of cramps,
especially in hot weather. But according to a comprehensive review of the scientific
literature published in the August, 1999 issue of Strength and Conditioning
Journal, “no data have ever been reported that suggest that muscle cramping occurs
with creatine supplementation.” Individual susceptibility seems to vary widely.
If you are using creatine and your incidence of cramps has increased, boosting your
levels of hydration might help.
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