America's #1 Balance Bike Destination
America's #1 Balance Bike Destination
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Cramping 101
If you race for 90 minutes with severe muscle cramps (racing is probably incorrect- more like "getting your ass back to the car..") such that you can actually see your muscles deform and change shape, and if there is residual pain in all of these muscles in the days which follow, what does it mean? Is this an indication of serious muscle fiber tears? Have I ripped myself up? It sure feels like it. I could easily Google this, but I'd rather hear what readers think about the damage caused by muscle cramps. Maybe if Sunday's race wasn't point to point, maybe if it was 5 laps around a 12 mile course, then maybe I wouldn't have finished, but maybe the damage to my leg muscles would have been limited. (??)
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6 comments:
Generally this means you are a complete and total wuss. You should sell your bike and take up a less stressful sport, maybe go back to shooting pool.
you need to spend more time chasing pathletes on the Cranston bike path...
LOL @ solo
Do not quit your day jobs.
A serious answer or an informed opinion wasn't expected from either of you anyway, so suck it "Mr. I-can't-race-crits" and "Mr. because-you-suck"..
Ugh.
You mean it was a serious question? OK, well I went to the voke and dropped out in the 11th grade, and never took biology, but I believe cramps are just involuntary muscle contractions. Your muscles are not all torn up. Take two Chipolte burrittos and ride easy in the morning.
No need to thank me, I'm here to help.
I think it depends on what you mean by cramping - the I believe that the getting ass back somewhere "I hate my bike - why do I continue to do this shit" type of cramping is mostly due to lactic acid buildup and the body's subsequent inability to remove it effectively which slowly damages the muscles. I think using up available energy supplies - muscle glycogen has something to do with this also.
I'm talking about the type of cramping where you can't ride faster than 15 miles an hour. Look at my result at Quabbin- I am an hour down on the first finisher. For the past three days, there's pain when I'm walking, there's pain when I rub the muscles in any way. I'm thinking that there is definitely some muscle damage in there which is slowly repairing. It's day four and I'm a little better. Racing last night, it did not feel like a limiting factor. I took no days off. Rode easy for 100 minutes on Monday, did 3+ hours of endurance Tuesday night, and raced last night. I'm convinced that a day off the bike would not have helped me.
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