Persistent Cramp - Tips to get rid?

saunaboy

Hi all,

New(ish) boy here. Doing a regular 60-70 miler at weekend &2-3 sessions of hard turbo per week (30-45 min). Decent diet, without too much booze. Always take care to hydrate & stretch before a ride.

Past 5-6 weeks I've found that if I try & ride hard, my calves cramp. Earlier this summer I did silly stuff eg. a 70 mile sportive on a mountain bike, without any cramp.

It's starting to get to the stage where I'm expecting it to come on & after about 10 miles, calves start to get the beginnings of cramp (fluttering of muscle deep inside the calf). I can slow down & keep it at bay, but it's still there, until I reach the end of the ride when I seem to get over it & can go hard easily enough.

I used to play a lot of footy & have a decent set of calves on me - I guess you could say that they are probably out of proportion to the rest of me.

Any ideas what's going on? Any tips to shift it?

mattward1979

I suffer with this too on longer rides,

Generally you will want fluids with Electrolytes and take some Bananas for Potassium.
I never managed to completely solve the problem though, so if anyone else has any more ideas Id be greateful too!

keef66

You could try lowering the saddle just a tiny bit. I worked out that my calf cramping was caused when I incorrectly set the thing a little too high which meant I was stretching the calves more than they liked. Back to the height reccommended by my bike fitting and everything's hunky dory again.

saunaboy

that's a decent idea - cheers! I did set the saddle about an inch higher.

One thing I didn't mention - I'm using clips that came with the bike, until I get my ar$e in gear to buy a set of cleats & shoes. Feels to me as if I can't quite get my feet far enough in & that I'm pedalling with the extreme forward part of the ball of my foot. Would that get any better on cleats - can you set then backwards & forwards a few mm?

Thanks for the help!

pneumatic

quinine is supposed to be good for relieving the symptoms of cramp generally. No idea how medically proven this is, but when I was doing a lot of mountains in France a few years ago, I took to buying big cans of tonic water and it seemed to help. (No, I didn't put gin in it; the French consume it like an ordinary soft drink!)

Mettan

saunaboy wrote:

can you set then backwards & forwards a few mm?

Thanks for the help!

Yes ^^

Erudin

I put Electrolyte powder from myprotein.co.uk and lime cordial in my water bottles on longer rides, and some Nuun tablets in saddlebag.


http://www.roadbikerider.com/cramps.htm

slowondefy2

saunaboy wrote:

Always take care to [...] stretch before a ride.

Stretching before exercise is no longer thought to be a good idea. Perhaps after a moderate amount of aerobic exercise, but not on cold muscles. Can't give a link right now (on the phone!) but will try to dig something out.

I'm no sport scientist and I'm not saying this is the cause of your problem. Good stretching after exercise is very important (and personally I have very poor discipline at this).

etapechamp

tonic water, cheap to buy, and works for me too, i used it on two etape du tours.

paul64

I used to suffer after road rides and for the past year found Nuun or Zero tablets great for me, 2 bottles of water with a tablet in each and I finish the 2nd afterwards if not during the ride.

Then since May and having added mountain biking this year I started to suffer cramp in the calves or even thighs during the last hour or more of four hour group rides. Since adding 2 tablets to the Camelbak of 2 to 3 litres I have had no further problems.

I infrequently take a banana to eat on the ride for energy and hadn't thought about the potassium, maybe that had been helping also. If Quinine works then that's good to know as well.

dmch2

Is it a case of getting the muscles to improve their lactic acid tolerance? So lots of endurance work at your anaerobic threshold so you've got just a bit of lactic acid circulating around for an hour or so. Also some lighter purely aerobic work to get the muscles better at absorbing oxygen so they don't need to go anaerobic.

The 'best' bit about the above is that it doesn't knacker you out so the next day you can carry on doing whatever training you normally do.

When I was rowing we used to do hour long rowing machine sessions at the pace that we could theoretically do for 4 hours. So I guess that means doing an hours cycling at 15 mph ish?

Or maybe I've misremembered all that :?

Philby

Nuun tablets are good. Also you could add some salt to an energy drink. As stated above stretching after a ride is very important - I also sometimes stretch my calves whilst on the bike (pedals vertical and press down heel on lower pedal). Finally you could consider a sports massage which will help ease tired muscles.

BlueScot

My calves are also a little big for my size and I've had the same problem, but only while sprinting during a spinning class, never out on the road. I decided that the main difference between the two were the pedal cages on the spin bike compared to the clipless pedals on the road bike. I've absolutely no evidence to justify it, but I decided that I was keeping my ankles far too rigid and pushing down with the front of my foot. The problems seem to stop when I relaxed my ankle a little.
As others have said, don't try a traditional stretch when cold, especially the calves. You are better doing "dynamic stretching" when a little warmed up. The on-bike calf stretch mentioned earlier also works for me. And I always put some electrolyte powder in one of my water bottles when out on the road. Hope these ideas help!

Phate

Used to suffer from cramp during pre-season football training and the club physio instantly had me putting glucose powder into my waterbottles. When you are losing a lot of fluid through sweat your dehydrated body cannot deal with the lactic acid build up, the glucose helps you rehydrate more quickly!