Muscle cramps, also known as ramps, play a key role in performance, especially at times of the year when temperatures are higher. Cramps are a limiting factor in exercise, which means that we must keep them under control if we want to maintain optimal performance throughout the entire ride. Otherwise, we will be forced to decrease the intensity or even have to stop due to discomfort.
Cycling is one of the most demanding endurance sports. During activity, glycogen wear and loss of water and electrolytes becomes a key element of performance, especially on the hottest days.
There is no single cause why muscle cramps can appear, but rather they are due to different circumstances. In this article we explore what muscle cramps are, how they can be prevented and the crucial role sports nutrition plays, including food and fluid intake during exercise in order to keep up and try to prevent these cramps from occurring.
Muscle cramps are involuntary and painful contractions that occur in the muscles, especially in the legs. In cycling, or any physical activity, they can be caused by muscle fatigue, dehydration, or electrolyte and mineral imbalances.
That is why we say that this event is multifactorial, since it can be caused by trying to maintain a higher effort than we are used to, a lack of water supply and hydration in the muscle, a low intake of carbohydrates or an excessive loss of electrolytes. and you go out These electrolytes play a fundamental part in muscle contraction, since they are responsible for the proper functioning of the muscles.
Most of the time, the ramps are associated with a bad nutritional strategy. Therefore, we must take into account a correct intake of carbohydrates, water and electrolytes.
Carbohydrate intake while doing physical activity can help us not only maintain our performance, but even improve recovery. Including carbohydrates during outings will help us maintain glycogen stores in an optimal state to continue practicing sports and not wear out muscle tissue too much.
On the other hand, hydration is not based on simply drinking water every 20 minutes. Adding salt and electrolyte pills will help to compensate for your loss, mainly through sweat and each muscle contraction. Proper hydration should provide us with both water, sodium, calcium, potassium, magnesium and even chloride.
We can obtain all these electrolytes by adding mineral salt capsules to our water bottle or opting for an isotonic drink. In this second case, the liquid will also provide carbohydrates that are easy for our body to digest and assimilate.
It should be noted that we cannot take salt pills “lightly” either, but we must calculate our sweat rate to later know how much liquid we lose per hour and, in this way, be able to estimate more or less the amount of salts that we have to add to our sports drink.
In conclusion, most of these cramps are caused by poor nutrition management or by wanting to maintain an intensity above our possibilities.
In the event that they appear, lowering the intensity and increasing the cadence can serve to relieve muscle tension. Sometimes the body sends a few warnings before the final contraction, but other times, they appear suddenly.
As of today, there is no magic formula that guarantees that we will not have cramps, so the best thing we can do is listen to the body, control the intake of carbohydrates during the activity, adapt and personalize a correct hydration strategy. depending on the rate of sweating and enjoy each ride.
