Exercise-associated muscle cramping is something that causes issues for a lot of people, in fact some studies put the prevalence at over 80% of athletes suffering at one time or another.
Despite many decades of research into the topic there’s still no clear or simple explanation as to what causes cramps, so finding a foolproof ‘cure’ is as elusive as it’s ever been.
The latest theory is that muscle cramps have a multitude of possible causes that all overlap and intertwine and that every person’s individual ‘cramp recipe’ is somewhat unique to them.
The most common ingredients for endurance athletes are likely to be related to muscular fatigue, fluid and/or electrolyte imbalance and insufficient energy intake, so addressing these is a good place to start.
Train your muscles to fatigue
Ensuring that you’ve trained your muscles to endure similar levels of fatigue and intensity as they will experience on race day is the first thing to make sure you have covered.
Training-wise, this means building up to rides of sufficient duration and intensity to simulate the demands of your event.
Include intervals at higher power outputs than you anticipate having to hold in the event and consider doing some harder rides on back-to-back days, so you start the second session ‘pre-fatigued’.
Rest up and taper in the final few days before the event as well to make sure you’re going in with ‘fresh’ legs.
Nail your fuelling strategy
Nailing fuelling is all about ensuring adequate carbohydrate intake around and during hard sessions and the event itself as this helps reduce fatigue at a muscular level.
For a 2hr+ event you’ll be looking to take on board 60g of carb per hour as a minimum, maybe more like 60-90g if you’re going fast.
This could be in the form of a carb drink mix, gels, bars or chews, and will need some practice before race day so your stomach can handle it.
Sort out your sodium
Tackling hydration and sodium balance will help, too. Ideally, try to minimise fluid losses due to sweat to less than 2-4% of your bodyweight by drinking enough to stay within those values.
The fluid that you do drink should contain electrolytes to replace those lost during exercise. The main electrolyte you lose in sweat is sodium, which plays key roles for fluid balance and muscular contraction.
It’s worth noting that most sports drinks are only strong enough to replace around half of the average electrolyte loss in the average person’s sweat. So, look for one with around 1,000mg or 1,500mg of sodium per litre.
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