Exercise-associated muscle cramp (EAMC) is a brief but painful involuntary spasm of skeletal muscle that occurs during or shortly after physical exertion.
When performing sports, the muscles that frequently cramp include the shins, front and rear thighs, abdominal muscles, hands, feet, back, arms...
Cramps can be minor to severe, innocuous to difficult to move and extremely painful. Muscular cramps are painful to the touch because of severe muscle spasms that can continue for a few seconds or up to 15-20 minutes.
Cramps can strike anybody at any moment, making it risky for some people to engage in activities such as swimming, climbing, driving, diving, or flying since they cannot receive quick treatment.
The initial cause of this issue is that the player does not warm up properly before exercising, causing the muscles to contract continuously. This is the body's normal reaction to unexpected shifts and motions. Second, severe or excessive activity causes lactic acid to accumulate in the muscles, resulting in muscular tiredness and stimulation of the spinal neurons, resulting in contraction. Furthermore, practicing sports for long periods of time and in hot weather causes the body to sweat profusely, losing water and electrolytes (potassium, magnesium, calcium) and producing muscular contraction. Finally, over-resting while re-exercising muscles that have not yet acclimated to the degree of exercise contributes to this condition.
Possible causes of muscle cramp when playing sports
Water and electrolyte imbalance disruptions, as well as aberrant spinal reflex activation, are proposed causes. There is no consistently effective preventative approach or therapy.
Disturbances of hydration and electrolyte balance
Excessive perspiration caused by hard activity is often thought to cause muscular cramps. Sodium and other electrolyte deficiency can cause constricted interstitial fluid compartments, which can aggravate muscular cramping. According to this theory, increased blood plasma osmolality caused by sweating sodium losses causes a fluid shift from the interstitial to the intervascular space, causing the interstitial fluid compartment to deform and contributing to muscle hyperexcitability and the risk of spontaneous muscle activity.
The strongest evidence that sweat-related electrolyte imbalances are a factor in some muscle cramps can be found in large-scale observational and prospective studies of industrial workers, primarily studies on miners, ship's stokers, construction workers, and steel mill workers conducted in the 1920s and 1930s, where administration of saline drinks or salt tablets was able to significantly reduce the incidence of cramps. These studies were necessarily constrained by the tools available at the time, but they did have the benefit of having access to huge populations and preserving meticulous medical records connected to productivity. Much of the older literature is easy to disregard, yet some of the observations were lengthy and careful. They should also be viewed in the perspective of the time's typical publication practices.
Altered neuromuscular control
The second idea is that neuromuscular control has been changed. According to this theory, cramping is caused by abnormal neuromuscular activity. Fatigue is thought to be the fundamental cause of the impaired neuromuscular control. Cramping is caused by a number of abnormalities at various levels of the central and peripheral neural systems, as well as the skeletal muscle. A succession of critical events can be used to characterize these disruptions.
First and foremost, recurrent muscular activity can cause tiredness due to one or more of the following factors: insufficient conditioning, hot and/or humid surroundings, increasing intensity, increased duration, and decreasing energy supply. Muscle exhaustion raises excitatory afferent activity in the muscle spindles while decreasing inhibitory afferent activity in the Golgi tendon. The combination of these events causes changes in neuromuscular control from the spinal cord. Following the changed neuromuscular control, a series of events occurs, including increased alpha-motor neuron activity in the spinal cord, which overloads the lower motor neurons, and increased muscle cell membrane activity. [2] As a result of this cascade, a muscular cramp occurs.
Treatment and prevention
Medication has not been demonstrated to be effective in reducing or preventing muscular cramping. Athletes are advised to stretch, stop moving and relax, massage the cramping region, or consume drinks to avoid or alleviate cramping. Stretching helps to calm down spindles by extending the muscle fibers and increasing firing duration, which slows down the muscle's firing rate. Water or electrolyte-rich drinks are recommended during cramps to replace the system with salt.
To avoid cramps when participating in sports, drink plenty of water, particularly mineral-rich water like oresol or salted lemon juice... before, during, and after activity. Warm up thoroughly before exercising; relax muscles before and after each workout; stretch before going to bed and in the morning when you wake up. If cramps occur repeatedly during activity or do not respond to treatment, contact 911 or consult a sports medicine professional.
When exercising, experiencing a cramp will cause muscular pain, therefore players must stop immediately and rest in a cool environment, attempting to relax their limbs to relax their muscles. contraction, followed by a gentle massage of the muscle If you have heated oil, massage it into the skin of the muscle that is contracting, or apply heat. If you get leg cramps, draw the tips of your toes and feet up toward your knees and gradually stretch the muscle in the opposite way.
It is also required to restore the body's water and electrolytes. Cramps can also be caused by a lack of sodium and potassium, so stock up on electrolytes like sports drinks and oresol. Eat bananas because they are high in potassium. After the discomfort has subsided, you can go home and relax your muscles in a hot bath.
Cramping, in particular for swimmers, reduces swimming ability or, more dangerously, drowning. If you are submerged under water and face this occurrence, you must remain calm. If your abdominal muscles are cramping, relax your body by spreading your arms and legs. Slowly breath deeply and press the surrounding acupoints with your hands, then gently touch the cramping region and urge someone to deliver it to the beach. If you get cramps in other parts of your body, such as your calves or thighs, you should find a method to go ashore straight away for treatment.
When you experience a cramp, gently massage the cramped muscle or use a foot tip to swiftly relieve the discomfort. Pulling your toes and the table up toward the ceiling, toward your knees. To keep cramps at bay, people with cramps should try to stand up, place their hands on the wall, lean forward slowly, and place their heels down. Alternatively, the cramped individual can sit up, straighten their legs, and flex their feet perpendicular to the floor. You may wrap a towel over the soles of your feet, grip the ends with both hands, and gently pull the cloth back and forth towards your body. The knee should always be straight at this moment. Repeat the towel pull until the cramp is fully gone.