Foot cramps during barre

RadishEater

I have been going to barre for a while and my feet love to cramp by the end of the class when we are supposed to point our toes. I also recently started using the elliptical which I think has been making the cramps more frequent. I would love to keep with the exercises, but sans the cramps. I do drink quite alot of water throughout the day and in class.

Have people had any luck by drinking 0 calorie electrolyte waters?
Taking a specific supplement/vitamin?
Certain stretching exercises?

Also anyone have luck doing strengthening exercises for arches ?


p.s I don't like bananas

JeromeBarry1

Lots of cardio exercise and little food leads to electrolyte imbalance. I address that problem by the direct consumption of salt. It seems to work.

fivelongmiles

Roll your feet. Tennis ball, mini roller, basically anything firm that you can really dig in with!

Also, as I'm a ballet teacher and dancer, if you had a picture of how you're pointing your toes I can see if there's anything specific going wrong with how you're doing it that might be causing cramp.

ContraryMaryMary

I get this in yoga sometimes if my feet (or calves) are tired from running. If you’re after a supplement, magnesium can help with cramps. You may like to get a magnesium cream or spray and apply it topically to your feet.

kayak4water

As an avid swimmer I've had the same problem. My feet would misbehave by painfully cramping at the instep (arch) near the end of a 45-60 minute swim. Pointing my feet while kicking would set it off and the cramps would often afflict me even if I just let my feet flop along behind me.

My daughter said to do exercises to beef up my arch muscles. No help.
My health care provider, said try NUUN tablets ($$) or drink orange juice, tonic water (a zero calorie version is available) and something else. Not much help. Those things had lots of sodium, a little potassium, some calcium and some magnesium. I even took a teaspoon or two of Mag citrate, a laxative, hoping to juice up magnesium.

After I started to watch my diet for electrolyte intake, I noticed that my daily potassium (K+) intake was often far below the recommended 4,700 mg. 4700 mg seems high, but I easily increased my K+ intake (more potatoes, fruits and veggies, legumes, etc). If I ate junk, I'd get a boatload of sodium, & not much K+. MFP's food database does a great job of listing sodium, but often reports K+ as "0 mg", likely because the food label doesn't list K+. I often look for the same food item from a different brand in the database with the right K+ values or look up the food item using Google and correct the database.

The result of raising my K+ intake was either coincidental to my diet change or I discovered something and fixed it. Instead of almost always having cramps near the end of my swims, I have them very rarely. I probably had a long term deficiency of potassium.

Perhaps you can eliminate potassium deficiency as one source of your cramps. Or maybe eliminate your cramps.

Good luck!
K4w