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What Youth Sport Parents Need to Know About Muscle Cramps

  • March 30, 2018
  • Hydration
CoachesEducatorsParents

Muscle cramps affect athletes of all ages, sizes, shapes, and experience levels, yet the exact cause of muscle cramps is still not fully understood.

In the past decade, sports science has revealed information that challenges long-held beliefs and offers new hope for kids who are prone to cramps. If you still believe muscle cramps are caused by dehydration and electrolyte imbalances, we have some important news for you.

 

Cramping is Complicated

Teen boy with one shoe off rubbing foot.Sports scientists have long been searching for the “magic bullet” that will put an end to muscle cramps, and the more they learn the more likely it seems that cramps are caused by a number of inter-related factors rather than a single cause.

Several studies throughout the 2000s showed no significant differences in the electrolyte levels and hydration statuses of athletes who cramped and those who didn’t (3, 4, 5). Some severely dehydrated athletes don’t cramp, and some well-hydrated athletes do. Some athletes with normal or high levels of electrolytes in the blood still cramp, whereas athletes with low electrolyte concentrations sometimes don’t cramp.

Another criticism of the hydration/electrolyte theory of cramping was the fact that exercise-induced muscle cramps are almost always isolated to working muscles. Dehydration and electrolyte imbalances are systemic, and when muscle cramping occurs in a medical setting, patients suffer cramps throughout the body. So, if cramping isn’t caused by dehydration/electrolyte imbalance alone, what else plays a role?

 

Neuromuscular Control Theory

A better way to think about muscle cramping is as a disruption in the communication between your nervous system and muscles. To use your muscles, your brain sends signals to contract down the spine and out to muscles through alpha motor neurons, and then muscles use something called the Golgi Tendon Organ (GTO) to inhibit contraction and let muscles relax.

Under normal circumstances these signals are in balance and contractions are followed by relaxation. When communication breaks down, which can be caused by different combinations of factors, the ‘contract! -contract! -contract!’ signals can become overactive, and the inhibition from the GTO diminishes. The balance tips toward more contraction and less relaxation, and you end up with a flexed muscle that just won’t let go.

The schematic below illustrates how the neuromuscular theory of cramping might work.

 

What Youth Sport Parents Need to Know About Muscle Cramps
Multiple variables affect muscular fatigue and lead to an imbalance in communication between your muscle spindles and GTOs. This can cause incorrect information to be received by your nervous system (alpha motor neurons) and lead to extra messages to contract winning out and a muscle cramp occurring. Image from Qiu J, Kang J (2017) (3).

 

What You Can Do About Cramps

As interesting as the science of cramping is, parents want to know how to prevent their kids from suffering from cramps and how to make them go away when they happen. Based on current research into exercise-induced muscle cramps, recommendations fall into three categories: training, nutrition (food/fluids), and strong sensory stimuli.

 

Training

In a lab you can induce a muscle cramp by stimulating a muscle to contract over and over again for a prolonged period of time. Eventually, the muscle fatigues to the point neuromuscular control gets out of balance, and Whammo! – your muscle cramps.

In real life, a young athlete’s chances of experiencing a muscle cramp increase when they are undertrained or new to a specific sport – when exercise intensity increases significantly in a sport they are accustomed to, and/or when exercise duration is longer than they are accustomed to.

A year-round combination of generalized fitness and sport-specific training can reduce the chances of muscle cramps in young athletes. Staying active helps ensure kids’ muscles are ready for new challenges, whether that’s a new activity, more intensity, or longer practices/competitions. This is yet another argument against having kids specialize in a particular sport too early.

 

Nutrition

While dehydration and electrolyte imbalances may not be the sole causes of exercise-induced muscle cramps, they certainly make a young athlete more susceptible!

Heat and humidity also play a role, specifically because they exacerbate dehydration and the loss of electrolytes through sweat, and young athletes are at greater risk for overheating because they generate a ton of body heat but have relatively little skin surface area available for sweating.

Keeping kids hydrated removes or minimizes one factor that can contribute to cramping, and consuming electrolyte-rich drinks during hot-weather practices and games can help minimize the chances of excessive electrolyte loss.

Food also plays a role in preventing cramps, not only because foods can be a great source of electrolytes, but also because carbohydrate energy helps stave off muscular fatigue.

 

Strong Sensory Stimuli

Strong tastes are the newest (and coolest) development in preventing and treating cramps. You know those athletes who swear by pickle juice or spicy foods/drinks as a means of preventing cramps? For a long time, people thought they were effective because they were high in sodium, but science has shown the effect happens faster than sodium can be absorbed and affect the body’s sodium concentration.

A 2010 study by Kevin Miller, sometimes referred to as “The Pickle Juice Study,” concluded the strong/bitter taste of pickle juice stimulated sensors in the mouth and throat called transient receptor potential (TRP) channels (1). TRP channels throughout the body mediate a various stimuli, from pain and pressure to heat and cold, and help the nervous system figure out what to do next.

Remember those over-excited ‘contract! -contract! -contract!’ nerve impulses that throw the action-relaxation balance out of whack and lead to a muscle cramp? Well, Miller and his colleagues found that strongly simulating TRP channels in the mouth and throat with spicy/bitter/vinegary tastes (not just pickle juice) can calm those overexcited nerves. This reduces the chances muscles will cramp and shortens the duration of a muscle cramp that’s already happening!

When it comes to cramping, it’s often said there are only two types of athletes: those who have cramped and those who will. Currently, there doesn’t appear to be a foolproof way to prevent your young athlete from experiencing a muscle cramp, but it’s just as important to realize there’s more you can do than just making sure your kids are well-hydrated.

 

RESOURCES:

Miller, K. C., Mack, G. W., Knight, K. L., Hopkins, J. T., Draper, D. O., Fields, P. J., & Hunter, I. (2010). Reflex Inhibition of Electrically Induced Muscle Cramps in Hypohydrated Humans. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise,42(5), 953-961. doi:10.1249/mss.0b013e3181c0647e

 

Qiu J, Kang J (2017) Exercise Associated Muscle Cramps – A Current Perspective. Scientific Pages Sports Med 1(1):3-14.

Schwellnus MP, Nicol J, Laubscher R, Noakes TD. Serum electrolyte concentrations and hydration status are not associated with exercise associated muscle cramping (EAMC) in distance runners. Br J Sports Med. 2004; 38:488–492. PubMed doi:10.1136/bjsm.2003.007021

 

Schwellnus MP, Drew N, Collins M. Increased running speed and previous cramps rather than dehydration or serum sodium changes predict exercise-associated muscle cramping: a prospective cohort study in 210 Ironman triathletes. Br J Sports Med. 2011; 45:650–656. PubMed doi:10.1136/bjsm.2010.078535

 

Sulzer NU, Schwellnus MP, Noakes TD. Serum electrolytes in Ironman triathletes with exercise-associated muscle cramping. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2005; 37:1081–1085. PubMed doi:10.1249/01.mss.0000169723.79558.cf

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Hi. I’m Trevon, Trey, Jennifer. Team USA wheelchair basketball player, paralympian, and true sport athlete. Today, I want to talk to you about goal setting. And there are three things that I would like you to know. First, successful athletes set goals and a planned roadmap. Second, goals should be written down, assessed over time, and changed if necessary. And third, goals need to be challenging in order to be worthwhile. As a freshmen at Edinboro University, I was a part of a team that made the national championship game. And at that time I recognized I was the low man on the totem pole, but I felt in my heart that I knew my dreams were so much bigger than winning a national title. I wanted to make Team USA. I knew what achieving my lofty goal was not going to be easy and that I would need to work hard every day.

So, as a reminder, I created a pyramid of goals that I kept right above my bed. This pyramid reminded me of the accomplishments that I was working towards and visually represented my need to create a solid foundation underneath me before reaching the top. In the bottom roll of my pyramid of goals I listed goals such as obtaining my bachelor’s degree, becoming a scholar athlete award recipient, and becoming an All-American. The middle row listed winning a national title and playing for a professional team. And at the top row, the most challenging of them all, I listed becoming a gold medalist for Team USA.

By understanding that there are smaller stepping stones to achieving my ultimate goal of being on Team USA, I was able to stay motivated and to stay focused on completing the smaller stepping stones fully before moving onto the next one. Now I’ll be the first to admit that not every goal that I listed on my pyramid was accomplished, but seeing my goals every day when I went to bed, I was able to push through the days that I felt like doing nothing in hopes of achieving the bigger picture. Remember, create a clear goal roadmap, assess your goals often, and continue to challenge yourself. I hope that you never stopped dreaming big or reaching for the stars. And I look forward to seeing where your roadmap takes you.

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I’ve learned what a properly balanced meal for my body looks like and I recognize food as the fuel that keeps me throwing. I hydrate and allow myself time to recover. And I listen to and communicate with my body so that I can be the best version of myself. In the end, you are in control of how you see, treat, and respond to your body. We only get one and it’s amazing to discover how many things our bodies can do. Be a true sport athlete. Love who you are in this moment and get excited for all the places your body will take you.

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I believe that sportsmanship reveals true character. So, no matter what situation I encounter during competition, I know it’s important to always treat people with respect and be a good sport. Remember, be a fierce competitor, find grace in all your victories and losses. And I hope to see you out there.

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Edwin Moses: You’re a coach. Maybe what you want is very simple, for everyone to just run in the right direction, score for their own team, to try and try again and again. Maybe you want your athletes to become all stars. You want them to earn trophies, medals, win titles. You want them to reach the highest height their sport allows. And wanting all of that, of course, that’s good. But as every great coach discovers, developing a great athlete means nurturing, nurturing the even greater person within. Truth is, you have even more influence than you know.

You have the ability to affect even deeper change, to take what’s in your hands and do something even more extraordinary. You can be both the coach who provides the skills needed to win the game and the coach who helps them learn and succeed beyond the sport, to become all stars wherever they land in the future, and to enjoy their lives more now, because the confidence and courage they find working with you will stay with them when they need it the most. There are games to be won, lives to change. Coaches have the power to do both.

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At first glance, dietary supplements look the same. They seem safe and healthy, but just because the label says a product is a dietary supplement, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether a product is safe or not just by looking at the label. Most vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other supplements containing nutrients are probably just fine, but supplements are not evaluated or approved by FDA before they are sold. Although it is rare for vitamins or minerals to be contaminated with drugs, there has been at least one case of a vitamin containing an anabolic steroid.

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Even when FDA tests supplements and finds dangerous ingredients, companies sometimes refuse to recall them. Sometimes, they simply repackage their product and continue selling it under a new name. Just because a product is on a store shelf doesn’t mean it is safe. You need to do your research and be an informed consumer. The dietary supplement industry is enormous. Supplements that appear to be safe could actually be dangerous products in disguise. If you use dietary supplements without doing your research, you may be taking serious risks with your health and your career. Please visit USADA’s Supplement 411 for more information about dietary supplements.