Cramping and Stiffness

On Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 7:32:57 AM UTC-7, Robert Seccombe wrote:
raxy recently commented, "I once developed cramp in flight. It was extremely painful since I could not move in a way to relieve it."

I have been planning on asking what methods are used to avoid and deal with stiffness and cramping while flying in such close quarters.

It used to be all I had to do was get up and walk to the back for a short time; now looking forward to doing some cross country soaring with a bit of a hip problem it's a concern.

I think this is a super interesting topic because I "enjoy" endurance sports like trail running.

Cramps are caused by two problems muscular/skeletal issues or poor nutrition/hydration. Muscular/skeletal issues are tough and one would probably need the help of a physician or chiropractor to resolve.

Nutrition is easy to fix, and in my opinion, gliding is an endurance sport. For my endurance running here are some things I do...
1. The day before a race I carb load and drink tons of water.
2. The day of a race I get a decent carb-centric breakfast like oatmeal.
3. During the race, I sip a ton of Gatorade or other sports drinks, if you get thirsty you are already behind.
4. Also, once I am racing it is time for my fuel. Some good options are GU, Sportsbeans, and Hammer gels. Sportsbeans are my Favorite.

Couple of things to avoid. On hot days driking just water is bad news since you aren't also replacing electrolytes. Most sports drinks and nutrition listed above help with that. There has also been some research that suggests a little protein intake helps with the things above, it is worth trying.

Here is a quick article that talks about this in much more detail: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/n...-athletes-101/