Cramps (Page 2)

JohnAgs3 - 2009-06-11 7:10 AM I cramped last year BIG TIME in a tough sprint race. I basically blew out my quads on a very hilly bike course, and it killed me on the run. At one point, I could barely move my legs. Eventually I worked it out and finished the run painfully. At first I thought that it was an electrolyte thing, but quickly ruled that out as (a) it was only a sprint, (b) it wasnt that hot, and (c) I had taken in plenty of fuel/electrolytes/fluid on the bike. It was training and pacing on the bike. I trained more this year, worked on hills a lot more, increased run volumes, and raced a better plan. This year...and as a result, I knocked minutes off my run and bike times and had no cramping. As stated above many times, Most likely its training. Doubtful its "heat cramps". If it happened at mile 20 of an IM in high heat...I would say its more debatable...but my money goes to training.

DanielG - 2009-06-11 10:02 AM

Heat cramps: First aid By Mayo Clinic

Calminian - 2009-06-11 12:03 PM



Not really in training, but the actual race had some big-o hills and downhills both on the bike and run.  It was definitely steeper than my training routes.  

gsmacleod - 2009-06-11 2:04 PM

There is a difference between heat cramps (a stage of heat illness) and exercise induced cramps and while electrolytes may be prescribed as a first aid measure for heat cramps that doesn't mean that exercise induced cramps would respond to electrolytes (or even that heat cramps will).

Ultimately, provided you are taking in a normal level of dietary salt and refueling during exercise with sports drink and/or gels (both of which contain salt), you are highly unlikely to require additional salt unless you have some type of medical condition.

The problem is that many people are looking for the easy answer (salt caps) when in reality their issue was that they tried to race/train too hard for their current level of fitness.

Shane

VO2Matt - 2009-06-11 11:57 AM I am will to bet with 99.9% certainty that all the downhill running on tired (bike) legs did the damage. I just ran a marry (steamboat) which drops a good 1000+ feet, and even with hill training (including a downhill 20 miler), it still destroyed my quads. I will disagree with avoiding downhill running though...if you plan on racing downhill, you have to do some training downhill. It does increase the recovery time for the run, so you don't want to do it all of the time, but it does help keep you from blowing up on downhill races.