My Husband got a Cramp….

My husband got a calf cramp while riding his fancy pants new bike up a steep trail the other day. 

Scientifically speaking, muscle cramps are sudden, involuntary and painful contractions of muscular tissue.  

He made the mistake of telling me about it while we were driving somewhere together.  

I went all “movement scientist” on him, but he somehow managed to keep driving without incident, after all he was basically a captive. 

He’s a good guy, my husband, and very patient with my human movement scientist monologues.

I think he sustained this muscle cramp because of the internal dialogue going on between the muscle tissues and the brain. 

Technically speaking this would be the PNS (peripheral nervous system), which is located outside the spinal cord and brain, sending messages to the CNS (brain and spinal cord) for a response.

In a human body this is happening all the time.  It’s constant and most of the time we don’t even recognize it’s happening (isn’t that the coolest thing?????)

We have a lot of receptors in our tissues (muscles, fascia, tendons, skin) that are constantly noticing external environmental cues of pressure, heat, stretch, contraction, force and relaying those messages up the superhighway of the spinal cord to the brain so it can formulate an appropriate response.

I’m guessing that the deep painful calf cramp occurred because mechanoreceptors (specialized cells that respond to “mechanical” stimulus) in the lower leg muscles sensed that he was producing too much force/load in his lower leg and thus, taking him into the danger zone. 

In other words, the pressure needed to generate an ongoing uphill climb was so intense that the muscle receptors were sending  “DANGER! DANGER! The Supreme Being (my husband) is Trying to Kill Us” messages to the brain. 

The calf cramp was a way to stop the supreme being from killing itself. It’s all about the physiological imperative to keep the human alive and moving even if it means pulling out all the plugs and making that human stop with a terrifyingly painful calf cramp!

Many parts of the brain and nervous system are devoted to processing sensory input in order to construct strategies to deal with the external environment.

When you step on something sharp, you’ll pull your foot away from that thing quickly. When you see a bear on the trail you’ll probably freeze or begin to move in the opposite direction.  When you are pushing down really hard on your bike pedal to get up a super steep slope your calf may cramp.

In order to pull away from something sharp, run from the bear, or pedal up a steep hill you use muscles. 

Muscles don’t just lengthen or shorten on their own.

Muscles are stimulated to move by something called a motor neuron. A motor neuron is a specialized cell carrying messages from the brain along a long cable called an axon stretching from your spinal cord to individual muscles. 

This is not a one-sided conversation of the brain to muscle, though. Often the muscles and other tissues have initiated that conversation with information about the external environment sensed through mechanoreceptors.   

It’s an intricate dance up and down the nerve superhighway that happens all day long every time you move. 

Two of the main characters in the story of muscle cramps are the mechanoreceptors (specialized cells sensing environmental input) called the Golgi Tendon Organs and the Muscle Spindles. 

They are important players in why muscle cramps may occur when we are active.

Golgi tendon organs (GTOs) are specialized receptors located between the muscle and tendons (tendons attach the muscle to bone).  Their collagen fibers get squeezed when force in applied through a joint.

GTOs basically exist to tell your brain about the force or load being applied to a specific region of tissues so that you won’t exceed your limits and harm/rip those tissues.

The second player in the muscle cramp story is Muscle Spindles.  Muscle spindles are collections of 6 – 8 specialized muscle fibers located within the muscle mass itself.

Their job is to tell the brain about the length and the rate of change in muscle length. If a muscle is being asked to change its length too quickly or dramatically, the brain responds with a strategy to slow that crap down.

• GTOs signal amounts of force or load.
• Muscle Spindles signal length and change of length.

These messages are processed by the motor system, the part of the central nervous system/brain involved with movement.  The motor system determines the necessary force and coordinated actions around our joints to produce a smooth and final action.

If the motor system receives danger messages from the GTOs or muscle spindles about force, like too much load or too much change in length, a reaction is formed.

In the case of a muscle cramp, it means that the tissues are at their maximum state of contraction and the muscle moves into a state called tetanus.

Basically, the muscle is now in a prolonged contraction that typically stops the human from doing what they are doing so that the repeated stimuli inducing the reaction stops and things can abate, relax, and maybe keep us moving forward without injury.

If you are riding your fancy pants new bike up a really steep hill and all of the above happens to create a cramp (prolonged contraction due to repeated stimuli that the GTOs and muscle spindles have spoken harshly to your motor system about) you will probably stop pushing the pedal with all that force and get off the damn bike.This is a good thing.

The signal was clear – stop now.

If you don’t stop you may hurt yourself.  If you hurt yourself you may never be able to ride the fancy pants bicycle again!

In yoga poses we sometimes feel cramps in the foot arch, calf muscles, quadriceps, lower back, or even our diaphragm.

Although we’re not riding a bike up a steep hill, these “exercise induced” muscle cramps are a result of GTOs and muscle spindles telling the motor system part of our brain that they are stressed, they are at their maximum, they need to be relaxed.

If we continually get a cramp, say in one of our foot arches, then it might be beneficial to note what actions we are making when that occurs and to remember that the arch of your foot is connected to the muscles in your lower leg and up the kinetic chain.

In fact, sometimes when we load a certain muscular region of the pelvis/hips with a “stretch” activity, our foot arch will cramp significantly.

Muscles work interdependently to make movement.

I can’t emphasize how important it is to look at the bigger picture, what’s above the area that is cramping and what’s below the area that’s cramping, because everything relates to everything else in our bodies.  It’s all interdependent.