Quadriceps cramping during squats?

jovalleau
jovalleau Posts: 127 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Okay, all you squatters out there, I have a dilemma.

Long story short, I work at a hotel, so my work schedule varies. Sometimes in work in the morning (7-3), sometimes in the evening (3-11). On the days I work in the evening, I breeze through my workout, so to speak, but when I work in the mornings and workout after work, I have this issue:

When I do my squat sets, legs start to cramp after about 7 reps...my quadriceps, more precisely, about 6 inches above my knees, toward the inner thigh. As mentioned, I work at a hotel, so I stand 90% of the day. I move around a lot doing various tasks, but I spend a lot of time stationary in front of a computer.

I'm not sure what's causing the cramping, because as I said, it doesn't happen when I exercise in the morning before work. I drink plenty of water during the day, and I often use those MIO drops that have electrolytes and B vitamins and such (pretty much why I drink so much water instead of soda). I try to squat down every now and then as well as stretch my thighs. Could it be diet related? I don't eat a lot of carbs during the day, but I don't know if that would have any effect.

Looking for advice here, so any help would be great! Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • KatissimusDorsi
    KatissimusDorsi Posts: 79
    Hard to say without seeing your squat, but I imagine they're just fatigued - cramping is often used as a defense mechanism in the body if it feels that it can't handle the strain being put on the muscles.

    Sometimes strengthening the hip flexors for quad cramps can help. You could also consider doing squats with form that has a bigger focus on the posterior chain - wider stance, toes pointed out, low-bar and hips pushed back. Alternatively just do deadlifts or another posterior-chain exercise on that day instead.
  • jovalleau
    jovalleau Posts: 127 Member
    Hard to say without seeing your squat, but I imagine they're just fatigued - cramping is often used as a defense mechanism in the body if it feels that it can't handle the strain being put on the muscles.

    Sometimes strengthening the hip flexors for quad cramps can help. You could also consider doing squats with form that has a bigger focus on the posterior chain - wider stance, toes pointed out, low-bar and hips pushed back. Alternatively just do deadlifts or another posterior-chain exercise on that day instead.

    Maybe it's fatigue. I've changed form from a more narrow stance to a wider stance with my toes pointed out as you said, but it seems to happen both ways.
  • KatissimusDorsi
    KatissimusDorsi Posts: 79
    Hmm well here's a little checklist that could help you out. Some of it's really basic but I like to cover all bases:

    1) Do you foam roll or dynamic stretch your quads and hips beforehand?
    2) Do you do glute / hamstring activation before you start your squats?
    3) Do you warm-up with the empty bar and slowly add weight till you get to your working sets?
    4) Do you concentrate on pushing through your heel and squeezing the glutes out of the bottom?

    Again, those are all really basic things that you probably already do, but good to double-check!

    Outside of that, consider strengthening the hip flexors. Test out different quad-dominant exercises on those days as well like lunges, step-ups or Bulgarian Split Squats and see if you get the same reaction.

    And if all else fails just do a more posterior-dominant lower body move. Conventional deadlifts work the quads pretty well too if you do those.
  • uconnwinsnc
    uconnwinsnc Posts: 1,054 Member
    I'd say they are fatigued and somewhat out of shape. Keep working on them!

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