i posted an article in FAQ about cramping. even though cramping isn't badminton specific, i think it is a good general info to know. i believe the key to relieve cramping is to stretch the piece of muscles. and i think a lot of people don't know that. http://www.badmintonforum.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7926
very informative, thanks! i just had a cramp today on my calf which lasted around 5 seconds because i immediately forced my leg to straighten out with foot fully on the ground. i just held it there and it stopped, although it is still a little sore. is ther any way to cease the sore pain? and, are u more susceptible to cramps after an initial cramp on the same day?
Hi guys. From a medical point of view, cramping is due to an excessive loss of sodium and potassium from the body. In other words, salt. Thererfore, if you would like to reduce the chance of getting cramp in the first place, I would suggest that you must drink water regularly during every session of badminton that you play. On top of that, you may also wish to take a little more salt than normal during the meal before your session, preferably a couple of hours before so that the salt has been properly absobed in your system. Hope this helps.
Drinking extra water actually LOWERS the salt in you by: - diluting your blood salt level - promote sweating, which is the faster way to lose salt Eating more salt won't help as it contains only sodium, and the salt level must be balanced by an increase in potassium or else the sodium is simply expelled next time you visit the washroom. If salt balance does cause cramps, then eating a banana will help more than anything else i can think of. That's why so many people eat bananas before tournaments i guess! Personally, i only get cramps when i'm cold or if i overworked my muscle (mountain biking for more than 7 hours, i always get cramps)
cyclists often eat bananas to replace potassium. however, that doens't work too well for me as banana often causes digestive problems, which is a bad thing when i am 50miles away from home on a bicycle...
Yes, I have seen many players eat bananas in tournaments. I personally eat them as well as drink Boost, which gives me energy. In most tournaments I've been, the organizers like to serve pizzas which I find very filling and dehydrating.
I went on holiday to Greece and drank a lot of water...more than I normally do. I got a cramp for the first time in my life in my sleep for no reason at all, and then AGAIN a week later in my sleep! weird. any thoughts? sorry if this seems a completely random post. Aleik.
this has happened to me once.... i find that the cramps i get in my sleep are a helluva lot more painful than the ones i get from playing..... as for me, whenever i cramp and my coach is around, she usually puts this oily cream on the part cramping while uh...."massaging" (if you count her squeezing it til i am practically screaming) the part cramping.... usually helps...
does anyone know if cramping is common among elite international players? The article said that cramping can be due to not being properly conditioned. So does that imply that the international players rarely get them? Also, this may be a little off subject but we were talking about getting cramps in the middle of the night. That's never happened to me but i have muscle spasms after playing a tough tournament. It happens when I'm about to fall asleep. All of a sudden my arms goes up as if I was serving backhand or my leg twitches as if it's about to react to a shuttle. It happens just as I feel I'm drifting off. I was wondering if this happens to anyone else.
I sometimes get cramps... and most of the time when I'm sleeping. I'll just get up and like, AHHHH!!! Never got one during badminton though. I always make sure I warm up properly, especially my legs. Do I stop sleeping?
I think proper warm up can only reduce the chance of cramping, but can't totally avoid it. Therefore, it's not very rare to see international elite players went down due to cramping. In the recent WC, I think I knew several cases already, such as Tsueng Seng, etc. In the past, Sun Jun was famous once due to a hard fight, and match ended in a really bad cramping.