Muscle Cramps and Hydration: an on going saga of pain

On Monday, during my swim training, I kicked off the wall in the middle of a distance swim to be greeted by a huge, awful, painful, no good, very bad leg cramp. Of course, I sound like a drama queen, but it was honestly the most painful cramp I have experienced in my life. The charlie horses you get in your sleep don't even measure up. It was so painful, in fact, that I am still dealing with the repercussions three days later. I've heated it, took pain killers, massaged it, walked on it, run on it, biked on it, tried to painfully roll it out with one of those snazzy muscle sticks (when I may or may have not started crying from pain :] )... but these are par for the course. It seems to be a little less awful today, but every time I sit down/sleep/remain dormant for a while and then commence walking again, the pain is back and I limp it off until it is just a dull ache.

I told my coach, and his response (which he sent to the entire team) were two articles: Muscle Cramps during Exercise -- Is it Fatigue or Electrolyte Deficit? by Michael F. Bergeron and Hydration 101 and Strategies for Athletes by Linda Samuels.

Here is what I have distilled (hahaha pun, get it, like distilling water):
1. There are two reasons one may get muscle cramps (or this is what is generally believed): fatigue and overuse OR dehydration and electrolyte deficiency

2. A sip of water from a bottle is generally equal to about 1 oz. During exercise, you should have 4-6 sips every 15-20 min. Once your exercise time increases to over 60 min, you should consider replenishing with electrolyte sports drinks (like Gatorade).

3. Heat cramps (in your muscles) can happen when your body does not have enough sodium (which is the main electrolyte lost is in sweat). This could've caused my cramp because in the pool you don't realize you're sweating... because you're in water. Ways to prevent this, yeah, electrolyte sports drink OR salty snacks before exercise (idk about you, but that's the route I'm going, yum).

4. Hyponatremia is scary. Look it up and make sure to replenish your sodium in big crazy races. If you lose too much sodium and then continue to drink water, it can dilute your blood and kill you. AWESOME. G2 officially added to my grocery list so I don't DIE at nationals next weekend. Unfortunately a symptom of hyponatremia is restlessness and so now I'm going to constantly be paranoid that I'm dying.

5. Here is how to know your sweat rate (so you know how much to replenish!):
Weight prior to exercise - weight after exercise = X
Convert X to ounces (i.e. 1 lb = 16 oz)
X + # of ounces you drank during workout = Y
Y/# of hours you worked out = oz/hour = YOUR SWEAT RATE

6. Stretching is more important than you may realize. That being said, I've been told that stretching after you exercise is far more effective. Stretching before or "cold stretching" doesn't really do anything and in fact can just make you weaker. (All though whenever I hear this I think, well that must speak to how strong dancers are...)

7. Ways to make muscle cramps better: icing immediately after they happen, massaging the area (yes, I know it hurts - massaging my calf made me grumble/cry/wince), and if it is specifically due to low-sodium you can ingest a "high-salt solution" like a sports drink to make it better, but... that confuses me.

8. Continuation of whatever activity caused the cramp is likely not possible if the cramp is due to fatigue or muscle overload. These cramps are usually the sudden ones that are in concentrated areas. Sodium-deficiency/dehydration cramps usually come slowly and can spread over more areas of the body. After consuming a replenishing substance, one could probably continue back on their activity without muscle cramping (unlike cramps due to fatigue).

It would seem that my cramp was due to muscle fatigue/overload (which is sort of weird to me as I was not doing anything more strenuous than my usual work). Phil seems to think it's because I was doing so much kick board work that we usually do not do quite so much of.

Now - an entry on open water swimming. This one just took me so long to compile!