Ow owowow, waking up with cramps

[Exxion]

Today I was rallying 2v1 (i was the 1). About 2 hrs later when I get home I go to sleep. I woke up twice with a cramp on my left leg, once on calf, once behind my left knee... does this have anythign to do tennis/running a lot?

[skuludo]

You most likely had a contraction in your leg. If your tired your more proun to it for some reason. There are 2 solutions I know of. One is to keep yourself very relaxed and try to control the cramps (try to not allow the "contraction feeling" occur), so that they don't occur. The other way is go see a doctor and they'll probly tell you to use some sort of cream. I forgot the name of the cream.

[Masamusou]

The main thing is to actually do something before you go to sleep, drink plenty of water, maybe a little pickle juice, drink some gatorade or other electrolyte drink. Make sure you STRETCH before going to bed too. It helps a lot. Another thing that helps me is potassium, since I personally don't like bananas, which are a pretty good source, I have potassium pills that I take, usually take one after I get done playing. You could also try massaging the calf a little before going to sleep too, not hard, just a little to keep it relaxed. Just be glad you only got it in the calf, if you get it in the quad at the same time your leg is basically frozen in pain because you can't move it either way without stretching one of the muscles.

[C_Urala]

maybe, hot bath for the ill place can help?

[Rickson]

Masamou is correct, drink plenty of water before going to bed.

[Chanchai]

To get the cramp/charlie horse to calm down when it happens...

Sit with your legs straight in front of you and do a light long stretch by grabbing the top of your foot (or reaching for your foot) with your toes pointed back at you. I think this stretches the hamstring and calves. Curling back the toes seems to be really good for the calves when doing this to alleviate a cramp. The cramp should go away within 20 or so seconds, maybe a little longer. But it might still linger for awhile.

Lightly massaging the calves later on helps a bit too, at least it does for me.

-Chanchai

[James Brown]

oh man i know how that feels. i was at first tennis practice for school team, it was INSANE. we did 3 hours no breaks, 2 of it was hitting, 20 mins of the coach *****ing at us and like 40 mins of sprints,suicides,kangaroo jumps...my thighs are shaking. i didnt realize the shape you needed to be in for this...lol.


edited for chanchai and the immature ppl :>

[Chanchai]

oh man i know how that feels. i was at first tennis practice for school team, it was INSANE. we did 3 hours no breaks, 2 of it was hitting, 20 mins of the coach eating us out and like 40 mins of sprints,suicides,kangaroo jumps...my thighs are shaking. i didnt realize the shape you needed to be in for this...lol.

Because of some of the not-so-virgin-minds on these boards.... or in most cases, not-so-mature-minds.... Might want to restate some of this.

-Chanchai :P