toe cramps

Jim: you might check out this web site for their series of articles on muscle cramps: Part I www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramps-part-1-theories-and.html Part II www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramps-part-ii.html Part III www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramp-part-iii.html Part IV www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramp-part-iv.html See below if you are not inspired to read the articles. ---mjm 1. Which muscles are more likely to cramp? This is a pretty important question. The answer, of course, is the active muscles. This theory explains why, because the fatigue, which alters the activity of these two important reflexes, is most manifest in the active muscle. The electrolyte theory doesn't explain why only the muscles being used for exercise tend to cramp - in fact, if low electrolyte levels were the cause of cramp, we'd expect generalized cramping, as occurs in clinical conditions where people lose a lot of salt and become hyponatremic. It does not happen in exercise, but the Fatigue Theory can explain it. 2. What kind of muscle cramps most often? Here, the answer is that a muscle that crosses two joints will cramp more often. This makes sense according to the Neural Fatigue theory, because if a muscle spans two joints, then it means that the muscle is going to be in a shortened position when it contracts. Think of the calf muscle during swimming - your toes are pointed (the ankle is in plantar flexion), which means the muscle is contracting in a shortened position. When the muscle is in this position, then the activity of that Golgi tendon organ is going to reduced even more than normal. Add to this the contraction, which stimulates the muscle spindle, and the net result is that the inhibition of the motor neuron is reduced even further, predisposing one to cramp. This is why calf muscle cramps are so prevalent in swimmers (the only time I've ever cramped, incidentally), and also why, when you wake up in the middle of the night or sit in a strange position for a really long time, it's when you point your toes that you suddenly go into a fully-fledged cramp! In other words, it's actually the position of the muscle that predisposes to cramp. For the others, the take home message really is that "Fatigue causes cramps, by interfering with the normal balance of spinal reflex control - it switches on the alpha motor neuron and the muscle contracts involuntarily." Try this - point your foot and toes down as forcefully as possible for about 2 minutes - you'll feel pretty close to cramp by the end! The reason is that you're putting yourself in the perfect position for cramp - sustained muscle contraction in a shortened position. The remedy, of course, is to make sure you take every chance you get to loosen up, relieve the contraction, stretch, etc.

Jim: you might check out this web site for their series of articles on muscle cramps: Part I www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramps-part-1-theories-and.html Part II www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramps-part-ii.html Part III www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramp-part-iii.html Part IV www.sportsscientists.com/.../muscle-cramp-part-iv.html See below if you are not inspired to read the articles. ---mjm 1. Which muscles are more likely to cramp? This is a pretty important question. The answer, of course, is the active muscles. This theory explains why, because the fatigue, which alters the activity of these two important reflexes, is most manifest in the active muscle. The electrolyte theory doesn't explain why only the muscles being used for exercise tend to cramp - in fact, if low electrolyte levels were the cause of cramp, we'd expect generalized cramping, as occurs in clinical conditions where people lose a lot of salt and become hyponatremic. It does not happen in exercise, but the Fatigue Theory can explain it. 2. What kind of muscle cramps most often? Here, the answer is that a muscle that crosses two joints will cramp more often. This makes sense according to the Neural Fatigue theory, because if a muscle spans two joints, then it means that the muscle is going to be in a shortened position when it contracts. Think of the calf muscle during swimming - your toes are pointed (the ankle is in plantar flexion), which means the muscle is contracting in a shortened position. When the muscle is in this position, then the activity of that Golgi tendon organ is going to reduced even more than normal. Add to this the contraction, which stimulates the muscle spindle, and the net result is that the inhibition of the motor neuron is reduced even further, predisposing one to cramp. This is why calf muscle cramps are so prevalent in swimmers (the only time I've ever cramped, incidentally), and also why, when you wake up in the middle of the night or sit in a strange position for a really long time, it's when you point your toes that you suddenly go into a fully-fledged cramp! In other words, it's actually the position of the muscle that predisposes to cramp. For the others, the take home message really is that "Fatigue causes cramps, by interfering with the normal balance of spinal reflex control - it switches on the alpha motor neuron and the muscle contracts involuntarily." Try this - point your foot and toes down as forcefully as possible for about 2 minutes - you'll feel pretty close to cramp by the end! The reason is that you're putting yourself in the perfect position for cramp - sustained muscle contraction in a shortened position. The remedy, of course, is to make sure you take every chance you get to loosen up, relieve the contraction, stretch, etc.