What is it that causes a lower leg muscle pain, a charley horse?
I have gotten them at times and my leg muscle will get as hard as a rock, after it goes away my leg will be sore. When I would get them was when I would use regular swim fins and start out doing too much without a warm up. One swimmer told me they were from a low sugar level. I have the Zoomer fins also, and have not had a charley horse with them.
Merry Christmas!
Former Member
Charley Horses are usually caused from Low potassim leaves in your body and lack of water. So when you work hard if your body is low in these it is going to respond by giving you cramps.
A good thing to do is eat a banana before practice and drink lots of water. You should also have a water bottle with you when you are swimming. When you have a brake make sure to drink some. This will help you from getting dehydrated. When you swim you sweat a lot so if you have a hard hour and a half practice you should drink about 4 cups of water to make up for the water loss.
Thanks for all the good advice. I am new to this forum. I have been having a lot of problems with cramps lately. Lots of good suggestions, here. My coach also says I should sleep more than the 6 or so hours I usually get during the week.
I have never had the charley horse myself on backstroke. Only with fins and just doing too much after just getting in the pool. I have been drinking some OJ ,water, eating bananas and starting off easier,and have not had a bad charley horse now for a couple months. I can tell if a charley horse is coming on. I can feel my leg calf muscle and it tells me to back off. If I do I will be ok but if I turn in a wrong way or tense the muscle the charley horse can come and ouch! As I have posted it will make my leg hard as a stone then it will hurt after it goes away.
I've had problems with Charlie Horses: Once it haeppened after diving in and i got it in both legs... it required a flutter board and the rest of my strength to get back to the wall.
I have a question. Does any one else have problems with muscle cramps or sore feet while doing backstroke? Maybe it's because good form is always stressed with backstroke. Maybe in my case it's bad form... any one else have this problem after a distance? Any suggestions? (I didn't want to make a new thread on the topic, and Charlie horses seemed closly related)...
Despite eating bananas and taking extra doses of calcium, vitamin & mineral supplements, I also get Charlie horses and cramps in the arch of my foot while doing backstroke. Usually it is worse at the beginning of the season, when using flippers or doing flip turns after a hard kick set. Like Jim, what I have found is that contracting the opposing muscles help relieve the cramp. What I do is; face the end of the pool, place my toes on the side wall, and then press my heal down to the wall.
I too get cramp in the arch of my foot and, if it happens, it's always towards the latter stages of a long training session or endurance race e.g. 5km+ whilst swimming front crawl.
.... and what makes it so annoying is that your foot tends to do the most natural thing it can to cancel it out by dorsi-flexing at the ankle - I guess this stretches the affected muscle in the arch of your foot. Of course, this then does nothing to help your progress on front crawl!!!!
If you stop to massage your foot ... the clock doesn't!
A difficult problem to solve.
Alex
