Almost everyone has experienced some form of cramp at one time or another. A cramp can affect you during exercise or even when you are resting at home. Whenever they occur, cramps are no fun for anyone. A muscle cramp is an uncontrollable and painful spasm of the muscle and they can occur for lots of reasons.
Muscle cramps can occur during physical activity and affect millions of athletes who may be either forced to change or stop their exercise. Although the factors that cause cramps are not well understood, new evidence has allowed us to investigate what occurs in the body during a cramp and give insight into how best to manage them.
In brief, cramps occur when muscles become overly excited often due to fatigue, dehydration or restricted blood flow. Therefore to treat a cramp we need to calm down the excited muscle.
We are able to do this by exciting other areas of the body (specifically the mouth and throat). By consuming certain products such as CASPICUM, GARLIC or PICKLE JUICE we may be able to reduce/re-direct the body's attention away from the excited muscle. In short, by consuming a small portion of these products we are able to significantly reduce cramp intensity and frequency even up to 8 hours after consumption.
However, as is the case with most things in elite sport, these solutions are not a one size fits all and athletes are still advised to follow current guidelines for hydration, nutrition and sleep to reduce the fatigue-induced risk of cramping. Additionally, stretching the affected area may help reduce discomfort caused by muscle cramps.