Muscle Cramps & Fatigue: What is it and how can I avoid it? (or deal with it once I’m in pain.)
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There are a couple of reasons for muscle cramping. Being dehydrated, not having enough salts, or electrolytes in your blood, over-heating, over-use and oxygen debt are a few that come to mind.
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Cramping is a result of muscle tissue inability to contract properly. Muscle contractions rely on a delicate balance of ions in and outside (in the blood and interstitial fluids that surround) your muscle cells. When the ion balance is upset, the muscle cell goes into a state of prolonged contraction: the muscle tissue locking in a contracted position, straining on other tissues, hence the pain of the cramp. Remember pain is your body telling you something is wrong, you don’t want to mask it with Ibuprofen or something.
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How can I avoid muscle cramping caused by ionic imbalance? Keep a diet high in electrolytes, drink sports drinks (Gatorade, Powerade, etc.) and stay hydrated. Remember to keep a balance in your diet. If you are eating salty meals, you probably don’t need the sports drinks. But if your meals are very low salt, you may need the supplement. Don’t just drink water. Recent studies have shown that (for ultra-marathoners, IronMan-ers and such activities), after a while, drinking only water (with no electrolytes in it) will actually be bad for you (dilutes the muscle tissue in the heart to the point of heart muscles cramping (heart attack)), and has led to the deaths of some athletes.
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Long term oxygen debt is another reason why muscles may cramp or develop fatigue. Cellular respiration is the process of converting sugars into useable energy (ATP). You need oxygen for cellular respiration to occur. This is called aerobic respiration, and it provides your cells with lots of energy (~36 ATP). When you perform exercise for long periods of time, the amount of oxygen available to your tissues (muscle cells) is reduced. This is one reason you breath harder during exercise (another is to get rid of by-products of respiration, like CO2). When you don’t provide enough oxygen to the cells another process takes over: anaerobic respiration. Anaerobic respiration is a technique that many life-forms use to get energy, but it is much less efficient that aerobic respiration (16 times less efficient!!). Fermentation is another name for anaerobic respiration; yeast (think beer), and some bacteria (think yogurt, kimchee) perform fermentation. When yeast performs fermentation, it makes alcohol. When muscle cells perform fermentation, the result is lactic acid. Lactic acid is actually poisonous to cells and must be broken down rapidly, or injury to the cells may occur. Lactic acid build-up is what causes muscle soreness after exercise, and may contribute to cramping. The kicker is, not only is anaerobic respiration much less efficient, but it actually uses up more energy than it creates in breaking down the lactic acid. So its really a big waste of energy in the long run.
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How can I avoid oxygen debt? BREATH. Slow down, enjoy the scenery. Stretching (I’ve learned through experience) will help to flush away some of the by-products of respiration from your cells, and will help to get the blood flowing and speed up gas exchange to the cells, speeding up recovery (recovery is when oxygen can get into the cells, lactic acid is broken down and washed away and the muscles are ready for aerobic respiration again). A phenomenon experienced by long distance athletes, runners, competitive swimmers (like me) is tolerance. These athletes do hypoxic training: training at low oxygen levels (basically means breathing less). Your muscle cells adapt to the low oxygen conditions and adjust performance so that they can perform like normal in a low oxygen state. Then, when you go back to normal oxygen levels, they perform even better. So over time you will ‘get used to’ having less oxygen and won’t experience as much soreness after exercise. There are formula drinks on the market (Cytomax) that contain enzymes that help break down lactic acid, leading to decreased muscle soreness. These do work, but you have to drink it regularly over a period of time (weeks), not just take a shot when your muscles are sore.

Dehydration is another reason that muscle cramping or fatigue may occur. Anytime you upset the balance of water in your body, many of the chemical reactions will suffer. Most notably, I find my muscles and brain cells are affected first. Dehydration is easy to fix, drink slowly, continuously. Don’t drink a liter of water in one gulp! The sudden influx of water may result in vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, etc. When rehydrating, make sure to drink electrolytes.
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Overuse and overheating are two other things that may disrupt muscle performance. Easy to fix, take breaks, cool off. Take a zero day here and there, stick your head in the waterfall (Moose do much worse!) Basically listen to your body. If you are tired, don’t push it. Forcing a couple of extra miles may cost you many more later on down the road.
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Stretching before/after excercise has proven to be of little scientific help to muscle performance, save to prepare the tissue for further use (increases blood flow and gas/nutrient exchange. Long term, serious stretching/flexibility training is required to make a noticeable difference in flexibility, muscle elasticity (do yoga for six months before your hike). This will increase performance and reduce the chance of injury due to tears, pulls and stress fractures.
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reminding people that this section exists...if you have input, please speak up.

Chances are the article is so good they have nothing to add. I intend to clean up some of the Word inserted crap before the thing is finalized.

Hey Saimyoji, I got to thinking about this yesterday - what about the next day or two when muscles are sore and/or cramping?

Good question.

Long Term Issues

Muscle soreness is caused by lactic acid build-up. The longer/harder you force the muscles to work in oxygen debt, the more lactic acid will build up, the sorer your muscles will be the next day, or two, or three....Its not uncommon to have sore muscles for several days after hard exercise. Especially if you are out of shape to begin with. When you are out of shape, your muscles haven't been conditioned to deal with the lactic acid as they are when you are in shape. See the section where I talk about tolerance.

For example...You haven't been to the gym in a while, say months, or years. The first day you go in and try to lift like you always did when you were younger. You will HURT for the next week or so. You need to take it easy. You should slowly get your muscles accustomed to the exercise regimen. After training for a few weeks, months, your muscles are conditioned to deal with the lactic acid. At the molecular level, your muscles cells become activated to produce more of the enzyme that breaks down lactic acid, thus reducing l.a. levels more quickly, thus less soreness. When you haven't conditioned the muscles, the cells aren't making this enzyme, thus it takes longer to break down the lactic acid, more soreness.

One other consideration with sore muscles: Many people go to the gym, walk, run, cycle etc....for exercise. But when you get out and actually do the event you're training for, you use many muscles you probably haven't been training. Running around in your neighborhood doesn't require you to use many of the same muscles you'll end up using when you're actually on the trail. The only way to really train for something is to actually do it over and over and over and over.....

Cramping is pain caused by severe muscle contraction. Cramping is usually associated with nutrition. (Getting enough electrolytes to the muscle cells). Remember that dehydration, overheating, overuse can also lead to cramps. While soreness should be expected to last a few days, cramping shouldn't. Usually you can work out a cramp in a few minutes (by stretching and massage) and be fine. Muscles that have been abused over many hundreds of miles with no rest are more likely to cramp up. While I stated earlier that stretching doesn't help performance very much, it can reduce the likelihood of cramps (pulls, strains as well).

Two things about cramps: They may be caused by electrical misfiring of the muscle tissue. This is also what causes muscle spasms. Let the spasm go and it will sort itself out. Or massage it away. The other thing is stronger muscles get stronger cramps. A cramp in these stronger muscles will probably hurt more as it can put more stress on the surrounding tissues.

I don't know of any sure-fire ways to eliminate cramps, other than to eat/drink well enough, and stretch....and breathe.

Good stuff. The other day I was moving gravel, some muscles in my shoulders starting hurting a couple of days later - I guess muscle groups that aren't normally worked when I do my normal work out or something. Anyway...

If you can work the info about avoiding and dealing with long term muscle cramps. and your original stuff into a new post, I'll clean it up for format and get it into a released article status.

Thanks!

There are a couple of reasons for muscle cramping. Being dehydrated, not having enough salts, or electrolytes in your blood, over-heating, over-use and oxygen debt are a few that come to mind.
There's one other cause I haven't seen mentioned here, and that's continuous exposure to cold. The body's tissues operate best within a fairly narrow range, around 70 degrees. Too much above or below that and malfunctions occur. Cold-cramping is more likely to occur in muscles that are exposed, particularly in the legs, because they don't have surrounding tissues (fats, other muscles) to help retain heat. Recovery is slow because reheating takes time, only after which can metabolic resupply and waste removal occur efficiently.

Some hammock campers have been finding this out the hard way when using torso-length pads. Their calves rest directly against the hammock fabric, which (because of convective cooling) chills down the muscles. Later on they wake up with cramps.

When it's cold out warmth should be retained in the legs and excess heat vented from the waist up. That way generous circulation is maintained (warm feet!) and joints function smoothly. (This is why athletes have traditionally used "warm-up" clothing for morning runs, weightlifting, etcetera--to protect the joints and maximize training performance.)

Doug Frost

Its a good idea to start your training by walking/running every other day,when fitter do recuperative exercise on alternate days -gives time for muscles to grow and the exercise flushes out the lactic in the muscles.Getting used to stretching after exercise is worthwhile.Warm up first if stretching is thought necessary before the hike i.e after half a mile.

Sorry for not responding DLFrost. I'm still thinking on how to incorporate your comments into the article.

Stu: This article is not about training for the hike, nor about stretching, though that would be a good article to do. Maybe you, or someone could do that article and include what I've written as a part of it.

I've some more additions/changes to make, Rock, so hold tight for awhile so I can get it sorted out. May take a few days.

I think self massage of leg muscles and stretching after a hike is beneficial in decreasing potential muscle soreness and prevention of overuse injury such as iliotibial band syndrome.

Something I was told was after strenuous exercise such as running, light use and stretching of the same muscles helped the body to remove the lactic acids from these muscles. If this is true, then walking around camp slowly without a pack after a long day would help prevent cramps.

Yeah..it seems the science on stretching has changed since I was a kid. We used to be told that stretching prepares the muscles for activity, warms them up and increases flexibility.

The most recent studies suggest NOT stretching to warm up. The theory is that cold muscles are less elastic, stretching when cold will only serve to increase the chance of strains, pulls. Stretching after exercise is much better as your muscles are warm and more elastic.

Stretching is great for increasing recovery. I mentioned it but kind of glossed over it. You should stretch after exercising for the following reasons: increases blood flow to the muscles flushing out lactic acid, CO2, other metabolic by-products and replenishes O2, electrolytes, glucose (metabolized during cell respiration), etc.

Techniques for stretching vary from very specific target-style stretching (stretching specific muscles very well) to a more general 'walk it off' type of stretch. For the average thru-hiker I would think the latter good on a daily basis, and target certain muscle groups that begin to get sore after awhile.

Remember that this type of stretching won't increase your flexibility very much. Flexibility training is a science all in itself.

As I said before, I think someone could write a good article on training for the hike, including stretching, and maybe my work could be included as a part of that...

More to come....

Something I was told was after strenuous exercise such as running, light use and stretching of the same muscles helped the body to remove the lactic acids from these muscles. If this is true, then walking around camp slowly without a pack after a long day would help prevent cramps.
It's also been reported that easy-going walking or swimming on "off" days helps recovery. This makes sense because muscle takes from two days to as much as a week to both recover and adapt to an overload. Having enhanced blood flow through the area during this period speeds recovery by removing catabolic wastes and providing anabolic supplies. This also explains the application of heat (pads, hottub soaks, etc.) as a traditional remedy for soreness.

Doug Frost