This is weird. If I swim at noon, I'm fine. About half the time I swim from 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. with a masters coach. When I swim in the evening, I always get foot cramps and/or leg cramps. I've asked the coach about this and she doesn't know why. I've tried eating a banana shortly before swimming, taking potassium supplements, drinking gatorade. Nothing seems to work. I drink about a gallon of water a day so by the time I swim at noon I've had about a half gallon - no cramps. By the time I swim at 5:30 I've had about a gallon - cramps. Anybody have any ideas as to 1. why I'm getting these cramps or 2. what can I do, eat, drink, whatever to avoid getting them. I prefer swimming in the evening because of the scheduled and varying workouts and the length of time I can swim. Thanks.
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Former Member
I have found that the longer I warm-up the better I swim and feel during the actual workout. I try to get to the pool before anyone else on my team and pull a good 400 - 600 yards before I start the "official" warm-up.
I use to get sporatic cramps (mostly on fly) and I haven't had one since I've started extending my warm-up. No amount of food or beverage seemed to help (bananas and gatorade included).
I also find that I get more cramps when I have a long time in between sets and have cooled down then go into high gear and do a lot of hard kicking or sprinting ... do you find a correlation there?
Hope that helped!
Swim on!
I have found that the longer I warm-up the better I swim and feel during the actual workout. I try to get to the pool before anyone else on my team and pull a good 400 - 600 yards before I start the "official" warm-up.
I use to get sporatic cramps (mostly on fly) and I haven't had one since I've started extending my warm-up. No amount of food or beverage seemed to help (bananas and gatorade included).
I also find that I get more cramps when I have a long time in between sets and have cooled down then go into high gear and do a lot of hard kicking or sprinting ... do you find a correlation there?
Hope that helped!
Swim on!
