Muscle spasms are terrible and very painful. You’re lucky if you haven’t experienced one before. Good thing is, they are preventable too and knowing exactly what to do when it strikes might just be the difference between an individual who strolls home confidently after a gym session and one who is writhing helplessly in pain.
Although lots of folks interchange muscle spasm and cramps often, they are very different.
A muscle spasm results when your muscles contract involuntarily and remain in that state thereby causing some terrible pain which makes relaxing quite impossible.
According to Mark Kozuki, DPT (physical therapist), the pain from cramps tend to be sustained unlike the pain from muscle spasms that just come and go quickly. While a cramp is often felt in the hamstring, foot, and calf, muscle spasms tend to affect the back, trunk muscles, and hips.
Causes of Muscle Spasms
There are various events that can be attributed to muscle spasms. Leaving your muscles in a high-threshold state after doing heavy lifts can cause muscle spasms.
It is advisable to eat a banana before a workout session because it is rich in potassium and potassium deficiency is another cause of spasms. The most common cause, however, is dehydration.
According to Dr. Adam Rivadeneyra, a sports medicine consultant at Hoag Orthopedic Institute in California, several factors can mitigate spasms. Some includes lack of enough energy, fatigue, and wrong movement patterns can lead to overworking the muscles and inevitably, spasms.
He also pointed out that extreme weather condition might also be the cause of muscle spasms. According to him, very cold or very hot weather conditions can make warm-up and cool down quite difficult for the body and muscles to manage as well as increase the rate of dehydration.