Prescriptions
Keeping Cramps at Bay

By Daryn Eller

You're heavy into an exercise rhythm, zoned blissfully out and endorphin-addled, when your calf seizes up with a vicious, burning, gunshot-wound-feeling cramp. It happens to every athlete, and yet we've remained surprisingly dense about how and why cramps come. Until recently, that is. Credit New Zealand sports-medicine physician Steve Bentley, who waded through all the existing research on cramping, found it wanting, and undertook his own study. So what gives? When your muscles repeat the same motion one too many times, Bentley found, the mechanism that typically tells a contracted muscle to relax just quits. It's muscle fatigue.

This means, of course, endurance devotees are always at risk. Aside from guarding yourself against fatigue — by drinking electrolyte fluids during outings longer than 90 minutes and gobbling carbohydrates every 30 minutes — a good stretching program is about the only real remedy (though as tradition suggests, bananas never hurt). Focus on problem muscles, which may be toe flexors and calves for swimmers, calves and quadriceps for runners, and quadriceps and hamstrings for cyclists.

But even the noodliest of athletes can be hobbled, as U.S. Swimming Resident Coach Jonty Skinner attests: The repetitive motion of swimming seven kilometers a day makes his athletes likely victims. For anyone who gets a cramp in mid-exercise, Skinner suggests applying ice for 15 minutes. If you don't happen to be near a freezer, skip to the next step and gently massage the muscle in a back-and-forth-motion with your knuckles for three minutes, which will nudge the flagging relaxation reflex into action. Then continue your workout at a good clip, say 70 percent of your aerobic maximum. "A moderate pace flushes lactic acid from the muscles," says Skinner, "so resist the urge to go real easy." Before long you'll be back in your zone.

Illustration by John Hersey