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Today, 09 February 2010

› Strike three, Mr President

› Cooked head discovered

› Zuma apology 'unwelcome'

› 'Illegal' traps blasted

› Madiba to grace Parliament

Yesterday, 08 February 2010

› No credit to FW - Zuma

› Zapiro revives showerhead

› 'Our president has failed'

› Praise for Amla

› 'Zuma should be forgiven'

Question

I am a fit 25 year old man, who surfs and runs. I suffer from terrible muscle cramps in my calves and, less often, my toes, while I am surfing. I also occasionally get cramps in my calves at night. What can I do about this? Are there any dietary supplements which will prevent this?

Answer

A popular idea is that lack of salt in the body during heavy exercise will cause muscle cramps. But as we generally all eat far more than our daily salt needs, and fit people tend to lose less salt in their sweat anyway, this is unlikely.

I suspect from what you tell me that you are not stretching enough when you run. A number of people have told me that once they improved their deep stretching routine their cramps started to disappear, and few recreational runners do nearly enough stretching! This is probably leading to cramps when you surf because cold water tends to cause muscle cramps in itself.

Try doing a lot more intensive stretching either before or after you run, and perhaps add a stretch before you go surfing as well.

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