While cramping is annoying to many runners, it can be severe enough to stop some people in their tracks. The best way to prevent a cramp is to stop it from happening in the first place. Here are a few tips to prevent getting painful cramps.

Drink lots of water. If I could give any beginning runner one tip, this one would be it. All the sweat you produce when you run is water leaving your body. If you are a heavy sweater, you could lose up to 5% of your body weight on a run, causing painful cramps as well as other problems. Bring water on your runs and make sure to drink it.

Stretch. Don’t skip stretching before and after every run.

Eat right. If you continually get cramps, you may be deficient in potassium, sodium, calcium, or magnesium. Try eating healthier.

Watch for triggers. Not everyone gets cramps for the same reason. Pay attention to what you do and the level of your cramps. You may find you can’t eat too closely to your run, or that something else is increasing your cramps.

Practice deep breathing. Not only will this help you feel better, the more you concentrate on your breathing, the less you concentrate on the pain.

To learn more you can go to diet and nutrition for runners or go to my forum and ask a question and I will address it personally.

If you have any questions or topics you would like for me to talk about Email them. Until next time, have a Great Run. Sign up for my newsletter for more tips.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under running tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.