Why do I keep pulling muscles?

dewsmom78

I haven't had any problems up until this week with pulled/strained muscles. Tuesday, I started working out and my left glute starting hurting enough so that I couldn't do lunges. Then I was doing an ab exercise and I felt my left side ab muscle start spasming. I drank lots of water and yesterday they were better. Now today I was doing squats and my right quad started hurting enough that I had to stop doing squats.

Could I be deficient on a particular vitamin? I warm up before exercise, and I do take a mult vitamin and drink tons of water each day. So I'm not sure what's going on.

JNick77

What does your weekly workout plan look like? I've had that happen with my ab's before and for me at least, it was related to overworking my ab's. I laid-off the direct ab work for a while and it was fine.

ahmadfahmy

do you stretch and perform warm up sets?

darrensurrey

What's your warm up consist of?

Do you eat enough... wait for it... salt? Cramps are a sign of too little water or too little salt, apparently. You say you drink enough water so the other thing I'd look at is salt.

Capt_Apollo

ore then likely you aren't warming up properly before hand, and cooling down and stretching afterwards.

StaticEntropy

I'd bet the house on the problem being low sodium levels. Like the above poster said, low sodium leads to muscle cramps. You say you drink a ton of water. This can be a double-edged sword. Drinking too much water can dilute your sodium levels and disturb your electrolyte balance.

daj150

ore then likely you aren't warming up properly before hand, and cooling down and stretching afterwards.

Are you doing dynamic or static warm-ups? If you do static, are you doing some other active movement beforehand (e.g. a short job or brisk walk)? If you do dynamic, are you performing the same warm-up every time you exercise? If so, did you maybe rush or over-extend during your warm-up? Did you already exercise (e.g. cardio workout) beforehand, then stretch, then do your workout? Once in a while doing a "warm-up" stretch after an activity and then doing another can cause you to over-stretch muscles (I forget what this is called). If you are consistent with your eating routine, then you can probably rule that out if this has never happened before.

ChristyRunStarr

You said you warm up but what do you do exactly to warm up?

DopeItUp

ore then likely you aren't warming up properly before hand, and cooling down and stretching afterwards.

Yes.

Or dehydration, that causes major muscle cramps and such for me. I drink a gallon+ a day on days that I'm lifting weight.

bostonwolf

I'd bet the house on the problem being low sodium levels. Like the above poster said, low sodium leads to muscle cramps. You say you drink a ton of water. This can be a double-edged sword. Drinking too much water can dilute your sodium levels and disturb your electrolyte balance.

Potassium deficiency can be a major source of cramping too. Avocado and bananas are good natural sources. Try doing a multivitamin every day for a week and see if that helps.

RGv2

I'd bet the house on the problem being low sodium levels. Like the above poster said, low sodium leads to muscle cramps. You say you drink a ton of water. This can be a double-edged sword. Drinking too much water can dilute your sodium levels and disturb your electrolyte balance.

Many people don't know this and drink far too much water....

dewsmom78

What's your warm up consist of?

Do you eat enough... wait for it... salt? Cramps are a sign of too little water or too little salt, apparently. You say you drink enough water so the other thing I'd look at is salt.

I try and stay at 1500-2000 mg of salt a day - isn't that plenty, if not too much?

dewsmom78

I'd bet the house on the problem being low sodium levels. Like the above poster said, low sodium leads to muscle cramps. You say you drink a ton of water. This can be a double-edged sword. Drinking too much water can dilute your sodium levels and disturb your electrolyte balance.

Many people don't know this and drink far too much water....

I drink about 3/4 a gallon of water per day. With consuming 2000 mg sodium, I thought I needed that much water. I do warm up and do plenty of streching.

I am thinking maybe potassium? I have not been eating enough bananas. I can definitely add those to my diet.

darrensurrey

What's your warm up consist of and how long do you do it for?