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<p style="font-size: 18pt; font-weight:bold; font-family:arial, 'sans-serif';"><a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/comment/got-cramps-check-your-salt-intake/">Got Cramps? Check Your Salt Intake</a></p> <p style="font-size: 10pt; font-weight:normal; font-family:arial, 'sans-serif';">Posted August 30, 2007 at 05:00 PM by Katie Drummond</p> <p style="font-size: 10pt; font-weight:normal; font-family:arial, 'sans-serif'">The most common cause of muscle cramps in exercisers is lack of salt, according to a report from the University of Oklahoma (Sports Medicine, April-May 2007). The authors cite studies of tennis and football players showing that crampers tend to be salty sweaters, and of triathletes who cramp losing more salt during a race than peers who did not cramp. They found that intravenous saline can reverse cramping, and that more salt in the diet or in sports drinks can help to prevent heat cramping. Until now, the leading theory was that most cases of muscle cramps in competitive athletes are caused by an exaggerated “stretch reflex”. When you stretch a muscle, it pulls on its tendon. Stretch reflex nerves in that tendon send a message back to the spinal cord (not the brain), and then the “stretch reflex”…<a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/comment/got-cramps-check-your-salt-intake/">(<a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/comment/got-cramps-check-your-salt-intake/">Continued...</a>)<br clear="all" /><br> <p style="font-size: 10pt; font-weight:normal; font-family:arial, 'sans-serif'"><a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/comment/got-cramps-check-your-salt-intake/">Read the full article...</a> | <a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/comment/got-cramps-check-your-salt-intake/">Comment on this post</a></p> <p style="font-size: 10pt; font-weight:normal; font-family:arial, 'sans-serif'">Filed under: <a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/archive/category/her-fitness/">her-fitness</a>, <a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/archive/category/sports-medicine/">sports-medicine</a>, <a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/archive/category/her-health/">her-health</a>, <a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/archive/category/her-nutrition/">her-nutrition</a>, <a href="http://www.heractivelife.com/women/archive/category/healthy-eating/">healthy-eating</a><br /><br /> </P>