ridethecliche

I raced yesterday, and my right calf pretty much locked up during the race. I was able to stretch it enough to finish, but I can still feel the tightness today and it hurts to the touch.

I was supposed to race again today but I wrote it off because I didn't want things to get worse.

I'm wondering if anyone can help me tease out the cramp so I can get back to training hard in the next day or two. So far I've been drinking lots of liquids/gatorade/lemonade, massaging, stretching, and I'm going to try drinking a bunch of tonic water since I've read that quinine helps.

I need to get back to racing/training asap, so I was wondering what suggestions people have.

Thanks!

botto 

what's your diet like?

MONGO!

Are you getting enough electrolytes?

Dago

Magnesium supplements. Potassium (from bananas for example) wont hurt either.

pmt

How often do you see your massage therapist? Regular massage therapy is pretty critical to success; perhaps you have to go more often.

ridethecliche

I ate a bunch of indian food the night before this race. Home cooked and delicious.

I've had cramps while riding really hilly locations before, but they've always gone away, and I've never had them during a race before.

At school, I cook most of my own food. Pasta, veggies, chicken, with spices and the like for dinner. Lunch is usually a wrap with lunch meats, veggies, and cheese.

cyclezealot

Eat more bananas before a race. I don't race, but cramp when doing mountains.. All you can do at the time is rub them out by massaging the calf..

botto 

i love indian food, but ghee isn't exactly the best thing for a racer in new england.

the advice on magnesium and potasium supplements sounds like a good idea.

i've only had one case of severe cramp, and that was during a road race in 90°F+ temps, the day after a crit, and 6 days after coming back from a year in Scotland, where the average temp during a race was 58°F.

ridethecliche

I might try taking multi-vitamins or such that come with Mg or K supplements.

Machka 

Make sure you drink lots before the race.


As for the cramp you have now, you might try taking muscle relaxants and using a heating pad. But if the cramp is bad enough, it make take several days for it the pain to go away.

ridethecliche

Could saddle height have anything to do with the cramping issue? I'm guessing not for now, because I've never had the issue before with my current setup.

Thanks for the suggestions machka, I honestly do think that I didn't drink enough before/during the race. Stupid mistake that I'm paying for right now... I just want to be able to ride hard again now.

coasting 

i eat a very low salt diet so i easily cramp if i sweat a lot on a ride. to avoid it i eat a salty snack on longer rides. i put a salt sachet into my drink (covered up by honey and lemon juice). eat something salty and stretch out tha calf muscle to get rid of that cramp sooner.

TCR

Too much too soon maybe. Ease off on the hard training for a bit and work more on base miles.

SpongeDad

I occasionally have calf cramps. Usually comes after hard uphill effort (low cadence) at the point where I'm ramping it up (higher cadence). I think as a I go to high cadence I probably flex the ankle a touch, which is enough to set off the cramp. This happened in a ITT once and the only way to finish was to gear up and ride the last 5km at 70rpm.

Based on the ITT experience, I had a coach recommend doing calf lifts at the end of hard days (standing on stair one legged, 3x10 each leg). It seemed to do the trick.

This is all in the context of not being the strongest or best trained rider out there, so for you it really may be an electrolyte issue.

liquefied

I had this happen to me once on my commute home. I had to ride one-legged for 5 miles. Sucked.

ridethecliche

I've been training well, hadn't ridden much in the last week before the race, but was out on the trainer and did a MAP test without issue.

ericm979

There's low electrolyte cramps, and simple overuse cramps. Overuse isn't from long term training load, it's from the effort that day. If your cramps are from overuse then no amount of electrolytes will help.

To prevent overuse calf cramps, you can do calf raises in the gym. Also, you can move your cleats back just a bit. That reduces the amount of work that your calves do.

ridethecliche

Might try moving my right cleat back a hair and see if that helps, if the issue happens again.

invwnut

Not saying the others aren't right but this is good advice. I have calf cramping problems and I do all the electrolytes, potassium, sodium. Always made sure that I was hydrated by doing the full bladder theory. My calves always cramped playing sports that required a lot of quick movements. What I found works for me is doing calf exercises. It literally started working almost immediately. I've been a tennis, soccer and basketball player and I would cramp after playing 1.5-2hrs. I recommend trying it.

ridethecliche

Just start doing calf extensions?

I'll start doing them now and hopefully they'll help loosen things up and allow me to ride.

invwnut

you can sit down and put some weight on your knees. Lift your heal up to the tippy toes. Also you can go to a step and put the ball of your foot on the step and stand up on your toes. Allow yourself to come down where your heal is below the step. Check this website out:

https://www.fitness-training-at-home....exercises.html

Also do a google search for "calf exercises"

DannoXYZ 

Muscle-cramps tends to be from too much strain on the muscle for their strength. Here's some tips I've found that works well:

1. lots of warm-up, I need 45-60 minutes of it before a race. And work up the intensity to do a couple of 100% all-out sprints to max-HR during warm-up. Then cool-down for 15-20 minutes before the race.

2. pedaling-form, sometimes with the adrenaline, people forget to pedal smoothly in circles. The resort back to the mashing form where they're still pushing down at the bottom of the pedal-stroke instead of pulling straight back. This causes the muscles to exert unnecessary force trying to stretch the crankarm, yet it does nothing for moving the bike forwards.

3. use easy gears and spin lots. Especially on long races of 100-150km+, you want to save as much of your leg-strength as possible for the end

4. draft lots. Always be behind someone unless you're sprinting for a prime or the finish. Soft-pedal to save the leg-muscles.

5. strength-training to increase the muscle strength. You don't want to be exerting your muscles at over 50% of their maximum strength for much of the race, less than 5% of the time if possible. During the winter, I do strength-training and double my 1-rep maximum lift compared to the end of the last season. During the season, my strength always goes down due to muscle-catabolism from long races, insufficient recovery, etc. I end up with more cramping issues at the end of the season compared to my stronger start.

nycphotography

I think there are two separate kinds of cramps... dehydration / electrolye cramps, and muscle injury cramps.

For the former (I get these fairly often). Drink lots of gatorade (water and salt) and hit the bananas.

For the latter, massage and recovery. And it might mean you went to hard for your level of training and injured yourself.

ridethecliche

I think it might have been a mix of the two. I think I wasn't hydrated enough, and I was going really really hard.

ericm979

It works for me. I do them at the gym on a machine.

Wait until the cramped muscle has recovered first! Massage and gentle stretching will help that.