What causes calf cramps

Calf cramps are a type of muscle spasm. When cramps occur, the patient will experience unbearable pain, especially when we are asleep. Sudden calf cramps will instantly wake us up. The severe pain prevents us from sleeping peacefully and affects our sleep quality. If we don’t know how to deal with calf cramps, it will be difficult to quickly relieve the symptoms of cramps. Now let me tell you how to relieve calf cramps.

1. Cold stimulation. Such as exercising in a cold environment in winter. Insufficient warm-up exercises or lower water temperature during swimming in summer can easily cause leg cramps. If you don't cover yourself with a blanket when you sleep at night, your calf muscles will be stimulated by the cold. The spasms would be so painful that they would wake people up.

2. Muscles contract too quickly and continuously. During strenuous exercise. The whole body is in a state of tension and the leg muscles contract too quickly. If the relaxation time is too short, the local metabolic product lactic acid will increase, and muscle contraction and relaxation will be difficult to coordinate, thus causing calf muscle cramps.

3. Excessive sweating. Long exercise time. You exercise a lot, sweat a lot, and don't replenish salt in time. A large amount of fluid and electrolytes are lost from the body. Accumulation of metabolic waste. Poor local blood circulation in muscles can also lead to cramps.

4. Excessive fatigue. The calf muscles are most likely to become fatigued when traveling long distances, climbing mountains, or ascending high places. Because every time I climb high. The whole body weight is supported by one foot. The strength required for the muscles of this leg to lift the foot will be six times the human body weight. When it is fatigued to a certain extent, cramps will occur.

5. Calcium deficiency. During muscle contraction. Calcium ions play an important role. When the calcium ion concentration in the blood is too low, muscles become easily excited and cramp. Teenagers grow and develop rapidly and are easily deficient in calcium, which is why they often suffer from leg cramps.

6. Bad sleeping posture. For example, lying on your back for a long time with the quilt pressing on your feet, or lying on your stomach for a long time with your feet resting on the bed, certain calf muscles are forced to be in an absolutely relaxed state for a long time, causing "passive contracture" of the muscles.

In addition to taking certain measures to relieve symptoms when calf cramps occur, we can also use some methods to prevent calf cramps in daily life. For example, we can drink a bottle of milk before strenuous exercise, warm up before exercise, and keep warm after exercise. These methods can effectively prevent calf cramps.