Lots of athletes will know the feeling. It’s a bit like there’s a small knot forming beneath the skin, in your hamstrings or calves. The tension grows, and the muscle starts to contract involuntarily. The cramp usually begins as repeated twinges or flutter-like waves of contractions. It only builds from there, and shifts from discomfort to sharp, intense pain. You have to stop to stretch it out, which relieves the cramp momentarily, before it comes back, over-and-over again.

Cramp can be debilitating for some athletes, effectively ending races in a painful stop-start jerk to the finish. For lucky athletes, it never seems to happen at all. Exercise-induced cramps are, amazingly, still a bit of a mystery.

In this blog, we’ll discuss what we think might be going on with exercise-induced muscle cramping, and suggest some strategies that athletes might use to combat them.

 What causes exercise-induced muscle cramping?

Like I said, the precise cause of...

Discussion of electrolyte losses in sweat and the perceived need to supplement with sodium during competition is ubiquitous in endurance sport. Particularly triathletes. According to a recent survey, the vast majority of endurance athletes reported that they think they should be replace sweat sodium losses during racing (5). However, is it really something we need to worry about? In this blog, I will briefly describe the state of the evidence regarding sodium supplementation during endurance competition and outline why I think that ingestion of some sodium during competition is important, but also why I don’t think the majority of endurance athletes need to agonise over the details of their sodium supplementation regimen. If nothing else it’s going to reduce the number of decisions you have to make, so strap in!

Sodium losses in sweat

First things first, what is sodium? Sodium is an electrolyte found in the body and is crucial for many physiological functions. The...