Muscle spasms SOS

pixiestick

Dear MFP'ers

This last week of running has been like week one all over again. My calves are killing me! and for the first time ever I had to stop running yesterday because of a muscle cramp and not 'I am out of breath and exhausted'. My calves are killing me. I could use some good tips on overcoming this annoyance. Thanks.

I am very keen on this half-marathon coming up in July and I feel that I have enough time to train for it if I can figure out how to keep my muscles from cramping like there's no tomorrow.

pixiestick

Dear MFP'ers

This last week of running has been like week one all over again. My calves are killing me! and for the first time ever I had to stop running yesterday because of a muscle cramp and not 'I am out of breath and exhausted'. My calves are killing me. I could use some good tips on overcoming this annoyance. Thanks.

I am very keen on this half-marathon coming up in July and I feel that I have enough time to train for it if I can figure out how to keep my muscles from cramping like there's no tomorrow.

songbyrdsweet

How long are you running? Are you very sweaty? Are you drinking something with electrolytes? Getting enough calcium?

jimswmn

A few suggestions.

1. Water intake
2. Stretch them out
3. Bananas

dclarsh

Your body may be short on electrolytes, specifically magnesium and potassium. Sports drinks can help to replace these minerals, but I prefer to get them from the food I eat. I'm big on multi-tasking :laugh: Bananas are excellent, as is yogurt, potatoes and dark leafy greens like spinach and kale. There are a lot more good sources, I'm just too lazy to list them all right now. Add an abundance of these types of foods to your diet, and your muscle cramps should subside.

lizbeth787

oh man, I feel you!

Last spring, I had just started a new birth control, and I was not stretching properly, so I had horrible cramps throughout my calves - my doctor made me go to the ER because she thought it was a blood clot from the birth control.... turns out I spent $1500 on a scan and 3 hours in the ER to find out it was a "muscular cramp" and the doctor gave me stretches to do... TALK ABOUT EMBARRASSING! haha, however, now I look at it and find it pretty humorous.

water, water, water!

bananas

stretch

take a day off.

godsgrl

Unfortuantely, it could be a lot of things causing this. You are going to have to experiment. Lack of stretching, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, or even a cal/mag imbalance ... the list goes on and on.

Some people get relief from cramping if they ingest dairy products before running. I figured out that anything with milk in it actually caused my cramps. Don't know why, it just did. I now rarely eat dairy and it solved my cramping problem. I've heard somewhere that eating dairy actually leeches calcium from your body? Who knows, but it worked for me.

Good luck with figuring this out ... and soon!

pixiestick

I run for about 40min at a time. Asphalt. I have good shoes.

I do get potassium, but maybe not enough. and I don't think I am drinking enough water throughout the day... I tend to down it in great lumps.

Any specific stretching suggestions?
Also, not a big fan of sports-drinks; does anyone know of a source of electrolytes other than that?

Nich0le

A few suggestions.

1. Water intake
2. Stretch them out
3. Bananas

Hear hear on the bananas! :happy:

One of the best things you can drink after a run is a glass of low fat or non fat chocolate milk! :drinker:

for stretching you obviously need to stretch your calves, go to runnersworld.com or womenshealth.com one of them just had a HUGE article on avoiding running injuries, you are probably suffering from tendonitis of your achilles tendon :ohwell:

I mention it a lot but I find the runners world website to be the most useful tool I have had for running EVER.

Hope you feel better, don't push it or you will make it worse