What causes leg cramps after exercise?

Nowadays, more and more people like to do sports, because sports can bring many benefits to people. However, if you do not master the methods and ways of exercise, it is easy to cause some problems during exercise. Among them, cramps during exercise is a very common phenomenon. When this phenomenon occurs, it is very necessary to deal with it in time. However, many people are not very clear about the reasons for leg cramps after exercise. Let’s learn about it together!

Strenuous exercise often causes "cramps", especially in the calves and soles of the feet. A cramp is an involuntary, prolonged muscle contraction. There are several reasons for cramps:

1. Because there is no warm-up before strenuous exercise, the muscles suddenly switch from a static state to an active state, and the leg muscles cannot adapt all at once, resulting in contracture ("cramps");

2. A sudden drop in outside temperature can also cause cramps. For example, if you are suddenly exposed to cold, your muscles will have a strong contraction reaction, so when exercising or swimming in winter, your calves and feet sometimes experience "cramps". It is more common when swimming, because when people enter the water, the heat released by the human body is 25 times greater than in the air, which stimulates the nerve receptors on the skin, thus causing muscle contraction through the central nervous system.

3. When you are overly tired after taking part in strenuous exercise, the function of the nervous system that controls the muscles changes, and some metabolic products (such as lactic acid, etc.) accumulate in the muscles, which changes the function of the muscle tissue and is also the cause of "cramps";

4. Participating in strenuous exercise for a long time and sweating a lot will take away salt, and the lack of chloride (mainly table salt) in the body can also cause "cramps".

Now that we know the main causes of cramps, we can prevent cramps by paying attention to the following points when doing sports:

1. Be careful to avoid excessive or prolonged cooling of the legs, especially do not stay in the water for too long;

2. Before engaging in strenuous exercise, you must do adequate warm-up exercises;

3. Don’t be too tired. You should not swim when you are tired.

4. After sweating a lot, you should supplement some salt appropriately, such as drinking some light salt water, adding a little more salt to your meals, etc.

After reading the above introduction, we can know that there are many reasons for leg cramps. Most of them have a lot to do with not being well prepared before exercise. Long-term excessive exercise can also cause leg cramps. So when this phenomenon occurs, you must pay attention to not overwork during exercise and be fully prepared.